September 2003

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Neverwinter Wednesday
Posted Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 22:51 CET by Sorcerer

Another week's around and here are the latest NWN Wednesday goodies:

New Prestige Class - Shifter
Shifters have no form to call their own, instead they change into one of many possible shapes, choosing one that is suitable for their current situation. Shifters are one of the 6 new Prestige Classes included Hordes of the Underdark. Discuss.


Hordes of the Underdark Chat
Last night Neverwinter Stratics hosted a House of Commons chat where several loose-lipped BioWarians discussed the upcoming Hordes of the Underdark expansion with the community. You can *head* over to the chat log here, which is worth a read as it contains many interesting tidbits about Hordes of the Underdark, including several features that have not previously been mentioned! Discuss.

Hordes Spells and Feats!
2 new spells from Hordes of the Underdark have been released to fansites, and will provide a sting your enemies will remember! Additionally, 2 new epic-level feats have been posted up at RPGVault! Discuss.

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RPG Roundtable 2, Part 3 at RPG Vault
Posted Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - 18:46 CET by Veldrin

RPG Vault has posted part 3 in its RPG Roundtable feature. This one includes Chris Avellone, Jeff Vogel, Alexander Mishulin, Steve Wartofsky, Kai Rosenkranz and Mike Gallo. Here's a clip:

Chris Avellone
Designer, Obsidian Entertainment
Unannounced project
I tend to agree with the responses that CRPGs have relied too heavily on pen and paper elements, which I think are fine when sitting around a table, but playing a computer role-playing game has an entirely different element about it, and a great many things about pen and paper games just aren't as much fun when you're sitting in front of the monitor. Here's a selection of stats I have grown to hate:

(Note: I would add the Halfling race to the list of stats and classifications I hate below [if it's not a hobbit, then drop it already], but I see where Brent Knowles is coming from, and I'm sure there are plenty of fans out there who would like to play a Frodo archetype as a character. And as a GM, I would love to kill those characters.)

Hit Points
Armor Class
Gold and Gold Pieces (which I would argue is a stat)
Spell Level

Speaking of that last classification, let me rant about spells for a while, since it's tangentially related to character development - basically, almost every spell system I have encountered in an RPG has done wonders for sucking all the mystery and enjoyment out of magic. Each one of them is basically "here's how much damage it does, and here's the type of damage it does." Maybe, in an exciting twist, the spell paralyzes the opponent for a while. Or stuns them. But everybody knows what a Fireball spell does now, and instead of being a source of wonder, it is now officially a dirty old whore of a spell.

See it all here.

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D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil Journal #7 at RPG Vault
Posted Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - 18:23 CET by Veldrin

RPG Vault has posted its 7th D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil Journal. In this edition, Tim Cain talks about some cool features that made it into the game. Here's a clip:

Monk Attack Animations
Monks in the Temple of Elemental Evil have special attack animations. When they are in combat, their hand to hand attacks are more than simple punches or kicks. Instead, they perform hammer kicks and roundhouse kicks, and they even have a special animation for a critical hit. Outside of combat, monks have special fidget animations, where if they stand in one spot for long enough, they begin to practice their hand to hand combat maneuvers.

While these extra animations are eye candy, they do make the monk class feel unique, and they call attention to the fact that a monk's hand to hand attacks are different than any other class. I found that after these animations were added, I always included at least one monk in my party, just to watch the special animations.

Read the rest here.

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D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil Chat Log at RPG Codex
Posted Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - 18:12 CET by Veldrin

RPG Codex has posted a log of their chat with the people at Troika about D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil. Here's a clip:

[Exitium] [Arcana] Question: If there is to be a patch...when can we expect an acknowledgement of what will and wont' be fixed/changed

[TimCain] We are planning for a patch that will not invalidate save games - rule #1
[[Troika]Steve] I know locally at Troika we've made changes to the codebase and fixed bugs, there was infact a build made after the gold build that Atari chose not to go with, and we continue to work on things when we have time.
[[Troika]Tom] I hope we can make an official (or unofficial) announcement by next week
[[troika]hnguyen] as i've written earlier on the forums, everyone who is helping to report bugs and link savegames really helps A LOT!
[TimCain] Atari has not told us whether or not they want to pay for a patch, so we will have to see what we can do on our own time
* TimCain says "Done"

See the rest here.

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2 New Hordes of the Underdark Spells
Posted Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - 17:55 CET by Sorcerer

This week BioWare has been especially generous, handing out 2 new Hordes of the Underdark spells to fansites:

Mestil's Acid Sheath

Caster Level(s): Wizard / Sorcerer 5
Innate Level: 5
School: Conjuration
Descriptor(s): Acid
Component(s): Verbal, Somatic
Range: Personal
Area of Effect / Target: Caster
Duration: 1 round / level
Additional Counter Spells:
Save: No
Spell Resistance: No

This spell creates an acid shield around your person. Any creature striking you with its body does normal damage, but at the same time the attacker takes 1d6 points +2 points per caster level of acid damage.

Healing Sting

Caster Level(s): Druid 3
Innate Level: 3
School: Necromancy
Descriptor(s): Negative
Component(s): Verbal, Somatic
Range: Touch
Area of Effect / Target: Creature touched
Duration: Instantaneous
Additional Counter Spells:
Save: Fortitude negates
Spell Resistance: Yes

You inflict 1d6 +1 point per level of damage to the living creature touched and gain an equal amount of hit points. You may not gain more hit points then your maximum with the Healing Sting.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - 17:43 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Heartbeat: Usually this happens when you assign to actions to a creature using a heartbeat script. heartbeat runs each 6 seconds, adding another action to the list of actions the creature has to perform. If these actions take longer than 6 seconds (like ActionMoveTo) or even infinite time (ActionRandomWalk), the list gets more and more actions added and will overflow at some point. The easiest way to prevent this from happening is to run ClearAllActions(); before assigning any new actions on heartbeat.

David Gaider, Designer

Quote: The Succubus model already has the wing nodes required for wingage. I would imagine that Bioware will update the standard models, but if not, it was stated that adding wings is as simple as checking the 'has wings' box in the toolset.

Yes, the succubus already has the wing nodes required to to put wings on it... so you will be able to put the demon wings on her that were originally intended. Just to note that we did not go through and add wing nodes to all existing models... only the PC races have had them added to this point (maybe kobolds, now, too... can't remember), though that in itself has opened up a lot of possibilities from a design standpoint (avariel and celestials pop immediately to mind, for instance).

Quote: Will you be changing the default succubus to have wings so that when we summon them, they look right?

You mean go back and change the succubus currently in the toolset? I don't think so, but it's possible. There's nothing wrong with a wingless succubus, per se, the fact that her model has the wing nodes is one of circumstance.

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Hordes of the Underdark Chat Log at NWN Stratics
Posted Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - 17:37 CET by Veldrin

NWN Stratics have posted a log of their chat with BioWare about Hordes of the Underdark. Here's a clip:

Question from *RAFSoft*
what is Hordes of the Underdark about?

BioWare Response
BioDarcy
The story of Hordes of the Underdark is about an uprising of Drow into the city of Waterdeep. The player is hired to find out what the Drow are doing, and to stop them any way they can.

Read it all here.

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D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil Review at Gamespot
Posted Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - 22:05 CET by Veldrin

Another big review for D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil can be seen at Gamespot, where they gave the game a score of 7.9/10. Here's a clip:

The Temple of Elemental Evil is a single-player-only adventure with a straightforward premise that's mostly an excuse to put you through a lengthy, diverse dungeon crawl. This isn't an epic-scale adventure--most of the game takes place in the titular temple (though, at the beginning, you explore the countryside until you find it), though the temple is a sufficiently huge, multistory affair. Initially, you create a party of up to five characters (or you may choose from pregenerated characters), who begin as neophyte first-level adventurers and can eventually grow to 10th level, which isn't as high up there as some other recent D&D games have allowed you to get. Make no mistake, this is no flaw--Dungeons & Dragons is probably most well balanced, tense, and exciting at the earlier levels, so this game's focus on relatively low-level adventuring leads to many nail-biting battles in which you must take great care to keep your party out of harm's way as best you can. Indeed, starting out, your party is vulnerable even to common thugs, though later on, you'll start to feel quite powerful as your fighters gain multiple attacks per round, your healers become much more useful, and your mages learn to cast damaging area-of-effect spells.

See it all here.

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D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil Review at IGN.com
Posted Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - 21:57 CET by Veldrin

IGN.com has posted its review of D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil, and gave it a final score of 7.5/10. Here's a clip:

In an interesting twist, you begin the game by choosing a general alignment for your entire party, and depending on your party's alignment, you can only choose characters appropriate for that group. For example, a true and just Paladin won't group with an assemblage looking to loot and pillage everyone in sight, and an evil half-orc barbarian wants nothing to do with a group of goodie two-shoes looking to plant daisies and save the world.

Read the rest here.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - 21:42 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Hail Of Arrows: HoA does NOT work with sneak attack, and that is intentional. There are a few issues with HoA being less powerful than it should be (i.e. the piercing damage not bypassing damage reduction), and these will get addressed in a future patch.

Rings: Won't change. You can only wear 2 magical rings in DnD by the book. As a sidenote, all items now require that they are equipped to use their power (if applicable, meaning if the item can be equipped into a slot).

Weapon Master: Confirmed. The "special" weapon of a weapon master must be a melee weapon.

Attacks: Given that certain classes, i.e. the Weapon master, will have a very high chance to score a critical in combat and will have *a lot* attacks in epic levels, I don't think this would be good idea, you would definitly get dizzy when you cleave through a horde of kobolds.

Quote: I think Georg is refering to whirlwind attack and its mysterious improved version.

Not to forget that you have *a lot of attacks* around level 20 anyway.

David Gaider, Designer

Serpents: Seeing as serpentine creatures would require a whole new set of animations, it'd require a fair amount of work. If and when we ever sat down and did the first serpentine creature, then you'd likely see us filling in a few of the other similar types as well at the same time. That's not happening in HotU, however, as much as I wouldn't mind having Nagas. As for demons and the rest, they don't get any more special consideration than other creatures. We don't approach which monsters we are going to work on by what monster types need "filling in", per se. We look at what is being asked for by the community, what fits into our campaign and the expansion as a whole and how much work the creatures would be to implement.

Quote: Just a question but, if you couldn't do oozes and serpentine creature in hordes, then how did you do the Illithid tentacles? Do they move around, or are they just motionless? Au Revoir.

It's not that we couldn't do oozes and serpentine creatures... like cloaks, it's just that we didn't. Illithid tentacles and beholder eyestalks use skinmeshes, which got added into NWN really late for dragon wings but haven't been used for actual creatures until now (though some community creatures, like CODI's manticor, use it to good effect). Works great, and yes... the tentacles and eyestalks to slither about independently without the use of jigglymesh.

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SP Happenings #16
Posted Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - 16:20 CET by Sorcerer

Tomorrow I'll be starting with the conversion of the existing SP content to the new design. Considering this latest version of the design is structured completely differently (though it will look the same to the end user) than the previous version, I don't even have a vague estimate on how long the conversion will take. I'll have more details on that next week.

Depending on the time necessary for the conversion, another site update might go up before the new design does, but again, I won't know for sure till next week.

There have been quite a few complaints lately over the pop-ups that display on SP and our hosted sites RPG Codex and WeiDU.org. I am very much distressed and angered by the occasional appearance of invasive pop-ups, and determined to change our pop-up advertising provider as soon as possible, since they have no intention of stopping slipping in offensive ads. Unfortunately due to the inflexibility of the current design this will not be possible on SP until the new design goes up, but I will try to come up with an alternative for our hosted sites sooner.

Although pop-ups are a necessary evil for the survival of SP, I would never willingly allow anything even remotely invasive to be displayed on SP as long as I can help it. The problem is that finding an honest pop-up provider today is a formidable task indeed, so it's quite possible you'll be reading about it here again in the near future...

In other news, a position on the SP news team is still open (ToEE forum news coverage), so if you are interested in doing it, please check the sticky in the Sorcerous Sundries forum on our boards.

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D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil Review at Games Domain
Posted Monday, September 22, 2003 - 23:18 CET by Veldrin

Games Domain has posted a review of Troika's recently released game, D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil. They gave it a final score of 3.5 out of 5. Here's a clip:

Compared to the Infinity Engine RPGs, and even to Neverwinter Nights, there's not a lot of plot to Elemental Evil. Long ago, a war between the evil forces of a temple near the village of Hommlet and the good armies of the lands nearby ended when the temple's masters were imprisoned. The temple fell into disrepair, and all was quiet for years. But now bandits are roaming the roads around Hommlet, and forces are starting to converge on the temple. This is where your party comes in, tasked with destroying this ancient evil.

Read it all here.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Monday, September 22, 2003 - 23:04 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Bebilith: Since most players would definitly restore to a savegame when their favourite armor is destroyed (and the chance for this happening is quite high), the bebilith does not destroy the armor when it hits a player, but tears it away from your chest armor slot (unequipping it), and since you can not reequip it in combat, thats pretty bad already. If the module builder/dm wants to change to a more rules compliant version of that special ability, he/she can set a variable on the module, allowing the bebilith to actually destroy armor on hit. I think that solution should please both the hardcore rules fanatics and the casual players.

Touch Attacks: There have been changes to touch attacks, they were broken in different ways. In general they seem to be much more formidable now, some monsters are quite tough now as they actually hit you much better with them

ILR: You know, there are a lot of different opinions on ILR, some people find it too restrictive, others would like it even more restrictive. In the end it all boils down to that ILR is a tool that was designed to keep multiplayer fair, but it has a cost associated with it: it limits design choices. Plus, every time we touch IRL we would risk invalidating characters already created...Your above definition of "fixing" reveals the conflict that is out there aber ILR pretty much. Bottomline: Don't expect major changes in ILR for Hordes.

Epic Feats: Also, do not forget that there are the Great "insert ability score here" Feats that have already been announced. Since Spell Save DC in DnD is dependent on your caster's primary ability score, getting those feats will help you to increase the DC of the spells cast by you. Plus, Save DC vs Epic spells works different anyway.

Darcy Pajak, Assistant Producer

ILR: ILR is being left out just so the designers do not have to worry about creating funky cool items for player and then finding out they cannot use them for a few hours. ILR was put into place in the original game as a concern for people cheating. However we have found that the community deals with cheaters much better then we thought so we no longer see the need to keep it.

Henchman Control: Here are some reasons full henchmen interaction will not happen in NWN:
1 - NWN was partly designed for on-line play with a party of your friends.
2 - NWN was designed to have a quicker pace then our older RPG's

If we had included fully controllable henchmen, then we would have also needed to include the pause feature so players could take control of their party and set actions. If this went to an online game then we would be faced with either allowing players to pause the on-line game and forcing other players to wait for them, or not allow a player to control their party and get most of them killed as no AI routines can take into account all the possible situations in an on-line RPG. As we learn more about what people want to do with their henchmen we try to include it if it’s cost effective. The feedback we receive from the community does work its way into the game in some form or another.

David Gaider, Designer

Quote: - Like locks, henchmen should be told whether to help with traps.

This option is being added to the henchman dialogues in HotU. Incidentally, you'll also be able to tell your familiars/animal companions not to bash locked stuff if you don't want them to.

Quote: Isn't there some way to automatically set the henchmen to switch from ranged to melee weapons when they're in close combat?

We were working on this prior to SoU's release, but the decisions the henchman would make as to which melee weapon to use were kind of wonky if there was more than one in inventory... most of the testers preferred to use the inventory management system to manually tell their henchmen which weapon to use, so in the end we disabled it. It might get worked on some more prior to HotU, but seeing as manual control is available it might not.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Sunday, September 21, 2003 - 16:48 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Polymorph: There is a column in polymorph.2da which has the resref of the item the character is going to equip in his right hand after polymorphing. If you just want to change the spell, I would suggest using a correctly padded 2da file, add a new entry basically copying the line of the doom knight and make your changes. You then use the line number of your new polymorph.2da entry as parameter for effect polymorph, so if your new doomknight was in line 320, you would change nw_s0_tenstrans to read:

EffectPolymorph(320) instead of EffectPolymorph (POLYMORPH_TYPE_DOOMKNIGHT)

After those changes you need to put the modified polymorph.2da into a hakpak and associate it with your module.

Disintegrate: You know, disintegrate always has the bad bad side effect of destroying any loot on the creature as well. And, no, there is no disintegrate spell for mages, sorry, but the beholders want to retain a monopoly on that ability

Beam Effects: There are limitations on how you can use the beams, imposed by the graphics engine:

* Your character needs to be able to see origin and destination of the beam at the time the beam is created

* Leaving the current area can result in beams not being drawn correctly when you come back

The solution to get stable beams is to apply them between invisible objects and "reset" the scene when a player comes back by destroying and recreating those invisible objects.

More:
The original purpose for beams were spells, and for that purpose they are working correctly. You can use them for many other purposes, but it requires some tricks to work around the unwanted behavior of the graphics engine in their case. You can find some more information on that topic on the Scripting Board, the short answer to your above question is:

Yes, we are aware of the problems you experience when using beams in a fashion they were not designed for in the first place, and no, these limitations are not likely to change anytime soon.

Scripting: There is a reason why those commands are not in yet. Functions that change Attributes, Feats, spells or skills would collide with the ELC system, allowing a scripter to make changes to a players character that would render the character "invalid" with ELC servers or even lock him out from his own server. Some of them (SetName) are not possible to add without major code changes, and thus are unlikely to happen. Others are being considered and one has even been added in the Hordes Scripting language, but has been found less useful than it might appear on the first glance, because of xisting engine constraints. You can work around some limitations with existing means(i.e. by granting feats through creature items using the dynamic item property system added in hordes). This does not mean that the Live Team won't consider adding those functions at some point however...Hope this sheds some light into that issue...

Local Vaults: If you run a local vault server, there is a full fledged selection of scripting commands to Examine, Add and Remove item properties and On(Un)Equip event handler which can be used to script your own Item Level Restrictions. Combined with the already existing scripting commands (i.e. GetItemGoldPieceValue), you can create pretty advanced systems for controlling item properties (i.e. automatically downgrading item properties to less powerful version, adding negative properties to balance positive ones...), all that without requiring a hakpak.

Quote: Quote: However (there allways is a however right?) There could be a Localint or a simple Item script that allows players to equip things over lvl 20 with no Penaltys of the server, if scripted correctly for a RP server right?

If the server is running a server vault (like most RP servers), you are not in trouble, because you are in control which items enter and exit your world, and if you wanted you could store a "level" for each item you create on your server and use the OnEquip scripting handler to verify if a player is allowed to equip an item of that level. You can even dynamically alter a weapons bonus when it is equipped, so it is downgraded to i.e. +3 if a player below a certain level equips it.

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Shadows of Undrentide Review at PC Arena
Posted Saturday, September 20, 2003 - 18:56 CET by Veldrin

PC Arena has reviewed Shadows of Undrentide and gave it a final score of 3/5. Here's what they had to say:

Even with all of these improvements, there is a downside to Shadows of Undrentide. SoU's gameplay can be summed up in four words: "More of the same." Also, several problems ruin the game experience. These include: a slow-moving storyline, numerous bugs, and a lack of ability to actually make decisions as a player. On the single-player level, SoU suffers from most of the same weaknesses that plagued NWN, and for most of the same reasons, fails to compel. For example, poor AI pathfinding and performance issues still detract from the game experience. Despite having a slightly more interesting plot, SoU still offers a mostly linear experience without the ability to truly determine the character's destiny. Core gameplay is very much the same as it was in the original. The quest even starts out in much the same way, with an attempt to retrieve some stolen items. Sadly, by the end of the first chapter most of the excitement and intrigue have worn off and the quest turns into a battle to stay awake. A good role-playing game should become more and more compelling as the plot thickens, but in this game we found just the opposite to be the case.

Read it all here.

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Hordes of the Underdark Chat at NWN Stratics
Posted Saturday, September 20, 2003 - 18:03 CET by Veldrin

NWN Stratics will be hosting a chat with BioWare about Hordes of the Underdark, the second expansion pack to Neverwinter Nights. The chat will be held at irc.stratics.com in #nwnhoc on September 23rd at 8:00 PM US/Eastern.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Saturday, September 20, 2003 - 17:52 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Class Limit: Three classes are max, adding another class was no option because it would have required a complete overhaul of the GUI as well as many many other aspects in the game. I doubt we will ever see the ability to take more than 3 classes in NWN.

IRL: There are no plans to change IRL. In theory, you can make items that give you almost complete invulnerability in epic levels, its up to the server operator to allow them or not. Given the new scripting powers for dealing with item properties, I don't see a problem with that.

Plus, you can now use the OnEquip/OnUnequip handlers to script your own item restrictions. All items that can be equipped require to be equipped to use their special powers in HotU.

Epic Spells: You don't need to win a check for these spells in Hordes, you need, however, a certain number of ranks in spellcraft to get them.

Expertise: Expertise is a "offensive" combat feat

David Gaider, Designer

SetFogDistance: Actually, for those who like to keep track of such things: it was asked a while back by some members of the community if a "setfogdistance" property could be set as an area property instead of being solely adjustable client-side. I don't know the details of it's use, but I'll say this: it is now in.

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Atari Doing Well
Posted Friday, September 19, 2003 - 21:30 CET by Sorcerer

We just received the following press release from Atari, which indicates that they are doing very well indeed:

ATARI SETS TERMS OF $200 MILLION RECAPITALIZATION AND PRICES STOCK OFFERING

-- All Long-Term Debt Eliminated --
-- Net Proceeds of $35 Million --

New York, New York, September 18, 2003 -- Atari, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATAR) announced that it has set the terms of its $200 million recapitalization through the issuance of new shares priced at $4.25 under an agreement with its majority shareholder, Infogrames Entertainment, SA (IESA) and a previously announced public offering. Per this agreement, Atari will issue 39.03 million shares of its common stock, valued at $4.25 per share, to IESA, in satisfaction of $165.88 million net balance of Atari's indebtedness to IESA, of which IESA is selling 17.18 million shares at $4.25 per share in the public offering. Atari also is selling 9.82 million new shares of its common stock in the public offering at $4.25 per share, generating net proceeds of $35 million. UBS Securities LLC is acting as sole bookrunner, and Harris Nesbitt Gerard, Inc. and SoundView Technology Group are acting as co-managers.

Upon completion of the public offering and these recapitalization transactions, Atari will have eliminated all of its long-term debt, and IESA's ownership stake in Atari will be reduced to 71% from approximately 88%. IESA has granted the underwriters an option to purchase 4.05 million shares to cover over-allotments at the same price of $4.25 per share.

Bruno Bonnell, Chairman and CEO of Atari, Inc. said, "The response to this offering marks the beginning of a new chapter for Atari. After having restructured our operations and having doubled our U.S. market share in the past two years, we now emerge with a stronger balance sheet and a larger public float. Atari is now a profitable company with no long-term debt and a much stronger cash position to face the challenges of the future."
A final prospectus relating to the offering may be obtained from UBS Securities LLC, 299 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10171-0026; Harris Nesbitt Gerard, Inc., 360 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10017; and SoundView Technology Group, 1700 East Putnam Avenue, Old Greenwich, CT 06870-1333.

About Atari
New York-based Atari, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATAR) develops interactive games for all platforms and is one of the largest third-party publishers of interactive entertainment software in the U.S. The Company's 1,000+ titles include hard-core, genre-defining games such as Driver, Enter the Matrix, Neverwinter Nights, Stuntman, Test Drive, Unreal Tournament 2003, and Unreal Championship; and mass-market and children's games such as Backyard Sports, Nickelodeon's Blue's Clues and Dora the Explorer, Civilization, Dragon Ball Z and RollerCoaster Tycoon. Atari, Inc. is a majority-owned subsidiary of France-based Infogrames Entertainment SA (Euronext 5257), the largest interactive games publisher in Europe. For more information, visit www.atari.com.

Safe Harbor Statement
This press release includes forward-looking statements, as that term is defined in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual events may differ materially from what is described in this press release. Factors that could cause actual events to differ materially include, but are not limited to, failure of the proposed public offering to take place, either because of factors relating to Atari or because of negative market conditions.
# # #

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Thursday, September 18, 2003 - 20:40 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Psionics: As Torias said, Mindflayers are in the standard Monster Manual, so why not use them. Psionics won't be in the NWN Engine, you should get over it...

Rings: Won't change. You can only wear 2 magical rings in DnD by the book. As a sidenote, all items now require that they are equipped to use their power (if applicable, meaning if the item can be equipped into a slot).

Intimidate: intimidate is in

Weapon Master: I think Blinding Speed is also on the Weapon Master's list now, it was just added very recently.

Camera: In hordes the camera will stop at the standard view if you pan it down. If you press the down key again, it will continue "unlocked".

Quote: ok, Im assuming that if Psionics are done through the spell system then it's a new spell type power and not a variation on Charm Person. Wrong?

Yes, they are handled as "Special Monster Ability", just like gaze attacks, etc. The "AltMessage" is not "Monster casts unknown spell" but "Monster uses psionic atttack". For some of abilitites SR or Spell Immunity does not apply, because they are treated as "special abilities"

Quote: Coolness. Im going to guess that you can then give that power to other monsters?

Sure.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Patch 1.32: Due to some more localization delays, the 1.32 Update has be rescheduled to be released on Monday, September 22nd. Sorry for the delay.

Tom Ohle, Communications Associate

Unlocked Camera: Actually, in Hordes, the camera is unlocked by default. Also, to use the unlocked camera in the current game, just do this:
Hit the Shift + ` key to bring up the console. Type in "unlockcamera 1" and you're done!

Weapon Master: Well, it does take a fair number of levels to get to Weapon Master... probably the most out of any of the PrCs in Hordes (don't quote me on that, though--I haven't done any real research into the subject)... cool class, though. My current character is one (though I built him horribly... 10 Ranger / 4 Fighter / 1 Weapon Master... so sue me, I suck at making useful characters)

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Temple of Elemental Evil In-House Interview
Posted Thursday, September 18, 2003 - 19:46 CET by Veldrin

Tim Cain has answered some questions about the recently released D&D: The Temple of Elemental Evil at the official site. Here's a clip:

Does the Level 10 cap in Temple of Elemental Evil allow for future expansions of the game? What was behind the decision to make the cap at Level 10?

Tim Cain: The original ToEE module was for characters of levels 1-8, so without making major changes to the module, we kept the original level ranges. Characters higher than level 10, especially those with access to 6th level spells, would be way too powerful for the module. We do plan to increase the level cap in a sequel.

Read it all here.

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Last Week's Poll's Results
Posted Thursday, September 18, 2003 - 14:31 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: Are you going to buy The Temple of Elemental Evil?
(291 votes total)

Yes, definitely (170) 58%
Maybe, not sure yet (104) 36%
No, never (17) 6%

Quite a nice majority of poll participants (58%) are determined to buy The Temple of Elemental evil no matter what.

36% are a bit more indecisive, having voted that they might buy the game, but that they aren't sure yet. This group of people will most likely decide based on the reviews of the game.

Finally, only 6% of those who voted are dead set on never buying ToEE for some reason.

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Neverwinter Wednesday
Posted Wednesday, September 17, 2003 - 21:43 CET by Sorcerer

Another week's around and here are the latest NWN Wednesday goodies:

Weapon Master
The Hordes of the Underdark Prestige Class featured this week is the Weapon Master, for whom perfection is found in the mastery of a single melee weapon. Additionally, a new Hordes spell has been released to fan sites - check the news post below, and a new feat has been posted up at RPG Vault! Discuss.

New Site Feature - SoU Modules Online!
In addition to showing the number of players currently playing Neverwinter Nights online, the percentage of those people playing modules made with Shadows of Undrentide content is now displayed on the NWN sites as well (located in the "NWN Site Status" side panel). If you don't already have Shadows of Undrentide, be sure to pick it up to join the online action, and stayed tuned for Hordes of the Underdark! Discuss.

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GameSpy's 25 Most Overrated Games
Posted Wednesday, September 17, 2003 - 20:04 CET by Veldrin

GameSpy has posted a partial list of their 25 Most Overrated Games. So far, the list includes Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor and Neverwinter Nights. Here's a clip from Pool of Radiance:

Unfortunately, the actual release was a disaster. First there was the technical issue of killer bugs -- including one, it was reported, that could erase a user's hard drive. Yet, even when the game was patched, it turned out that the updating of Pool of Radiance was a barely passable dungeon crawl filled with uninspired monsters, a boring, linear storyline, and a very bad implementation of the D&D 3.0 rule set. Sometimes the past should stay in the past.

You can see Pool of Radiance here, and Neverwinter Nights here.

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Greyhawk Chat at RPGCodex
Posted Wednesday, September 17, 2003 - 19:51 CET by Veldrin

RPGCodex will be hosting a chat with Tim Cain and five assorted other Troika folks about The Temple of Elemental Evil and the future. The chat will take place on Tuesday, September 23rd at 8PM EST on Gamesnet (irc.gamesnet.net) in #RPGCodex.

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BioWare Unveils Another HotU Spell
Posted Wednesday, September 17, 2003 - 19:40 CET by Sorcerer

Here is this week's new Hordes of the Underdark spell:

Ball Lightning

Caster Level(s): Wizard / Sorcerer 5
Innate Level: 5
School: Evocation
Descriptor(s): Electricity
Component(s): Verbal, Somatic
Range: Medium
Area of Effect / Target: Single
Duration: Instantaneous
Additional Counter Spells:
Save: Reflex 1/2
Spell Resistance: Yes

You create a ball of lightning that strikes your target. The damage of the ball is 1d6 per level to a maximum of 15d6.

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Obsidian Entertainment Interview at HomeLan Fed
Posted Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 23:39 CET by Veldrin

HomeLan Fed has posted an interview with Feargus Urquhart of Obsidian Entertainment. They talk about why he left Black Isle and about starting his own company. Here's a clip:

HomeLAN - Why did you wish to start your own gaming development company?

Feargus Urquhart - The part of my job that I have always enjoyed a great deal was running internally developed projects. Before I went into games, I was getting my engineering degree at the University of California at San Diego, so I have a fairly technical background. What lead me to engineering was my love for how things were put together and how to make them either more efficient or do new and interesting things. So when it comes to games, I really like to be involved in the nuts and bolts of projects and work with everyone on how to get everything running smoothly

Read it all here.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 22:20 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Resting on HotU: There will be some kind of resting penalty, i.e. wandering monsters disturbing your sleep if you rest carelessly in a dangerous place like the underdark. There will be no food, sleep, etc system, because we do not think it is fun for the vast majority of players simulating mundane needs in an epic/heroic adventure.

Quote: Wanted to get a quick confirmation here. Are the dynamic properties and static properties two separate entities? Basically, you can't use the dynamic functions to remove a Toolset defined property? (i.e. Turning a +1 Sword into a regular one by removing it's enhancement bonus) And also does this mean that dynamic properties won't show up at all in the item description like the static properties summary? Or can we choose whether it would show up or not?

There are no "dynamic" item properties as opposed to "static" ones. Hordes of the Underdark will add the ability to dynamically add "item properties" during runtime. However these item properties are exactly the same as in the toolset, when applied with permanent duration. When added as temporary properties (something you can not do in the toolset), they go away after the duration runs out or the game ends. When added as permanent properties, it is exactly the same as when you would added.

Permanent and Temporary item properties can be removed using the RemoveItemProperty command. They can not be removed temporary, you need to script around that. The name of an item is not modified by changing its item properties. Temporary item properties do not add to cost, they appear as blue colored text in the examination window and disappear once you leave the game. No plans to include functions that mess around with any core statistics of a character (skills, feats, attribute scores).

No differences, No anonymous flag. It does not matter if you add item properties via toolset or scripting language, the result it the same.

You can apply an existing ItemProperty property via the scripting language, it does not. If your question was if there are plans to include more negative properties than the ones currently existing, the answer is no. SetName is not going to happen. Period. There will be GetFirstItemProperty, GetNextItemProperty, GetItemPropertyType (returning an ITEMP_PROPERY_* constant) as well as an GetItemPropertySubType function.

Quote: I am unsure how PrCs will work with epic levels. Will an Assassin (for example) still be capped at 10 levels? This could make a big difference because of things like the DC of Death Attacks. Even more so things like the classes with summoning abilities.... a blackguard's 'Summon Fiend' is great at lvl 9, but not worth taking into battle against monsters out there to kill lvl 40s. Im curious.

Any prestige class that can reach level 10 can go into epic levels (11+) in Hordes. However, to get past level 10 in a prestige class, your overall character level has to be at least 20. The Harper scout is an example for a class that reaches only level 5 by the book, because of that, can not reach epic levels (in that class)

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Patch 1.32: The 1.32 Update is entering its final testing stage. To account for this and for organizing a simultaneous release for non-English languages, we are going to schedule the 1.32 Update to be released on Thursday morning, September 18th. While this seems like a delay it is only one such that we can have the release at the same time for all languages.

Quote: I'd think the english servers are the majority of the servers running 24/7, wouldn't it be a good idea to let them have the patch as soon as it's available?

And that is what exactly causes the non-English owners of NWN to start screaming. Its what we have done in the past and been taken to task for. In a certain sense, you already have the 1.32 Update and nothing is really changing from the Beta to final in this case.

David Gaider, Designer

Quote: If I'm level one, and my sword is dynamically imbued with a +3 power, temporarily, and the ELC settings are enabled (meaning that I can't use certain level restrictive items), will my character unequip the sword because he's not a high enough level to use it?

I believe minimum level restrictions for items are only changed by permanent properties. And if the item's ELC did change, I suspect that the item would not be unequipped... though if you ever did unequip it you likely would not be able to re-equip it.

Quote: So if there are any cursed items in HotU, they will blatently advertise their ability curses under their examination window? (Once activated at the OnEquip event of course!)

Okay, I've posted this elsewhere, but let me try again. There IS a "cursed" flag that can be set on an item. This will mean that the item cannot be removed from inventory... it cannot be dropped or given to someone else. Also handy for giving henchmen equipment you don't want them to give up. There IS NOT an "anonymous" flag for any properties. When I mentioned this, way back, it was regarding the fact that scriptable item functions (via OnEquip/OnUnEquip and OnHit:UniqueSpell) would work well for cursed items because these scripted functions would not appear on the list of item's properties when examined. That's all. If you give the item properties in the toolset or add them by scripting, they are still visible on examine.

Quote: This last bit is unclear. Does it goes like this :

- a permanent effect would appear in the description

- a temporary effect would not appear in the description

Is this correct?

No, that is incorrect. Both permanent and temporary item properties appear in the description of an item. What does NOT appear are scripted functions. So if I add an item property to an item (say I add Enchantment +1), that would show up on the item when it is examined, whether that enchantment is temporary or permanent. If I add a script to the module's OnEquip function that, say, causes anyone with a Strength of less that 15 to immediately unequip and drop the sword... that would NOT appear on the on the item's description. If I add an OnHit:UniqueSpell function to the sword that causes anyone hit to make a Fortitude save or I apply a poison effect to them, that effect also would NOT appear on the item's description... although the fact that there is an OnHit:UniqueSpell item property WOULD appear because it must be added to the item. You just wouldn't know what that UniqueSpell did.

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GameSpy Reviews Temple of Elemental Evil
Posted Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 19:11 CET by Sorcerer

The first review of ToEE is out, and the verdict is 4 out of 5 stars. Here's a snip of what GameSpy had to say about it:

Fans of other computer RPGs should be able to slip into ToEE quite easily. At a glance, it appears as your standard isometric view game where you control a party of adventurers and guide them through towns, woodlands, and -- of course -- dungeons. Think Baldur's Gate and you're not too far off the mark. The game lets you start by picking from pre-generated characters or creating your own band of up to five adventurers. Either way, your characters start as bumbling novices and spend the rest of the game progressing through up to ten levels of skill.

Like with other facets of the game, the options you have in creating your party are mind-bogglingly numerous. I happily spent 30 minutes creating my party. The game's adherence to the 3.5 rule set means you get to roll abilities, pick a profession, assign skill points, choose special powers ("feats"), pick spells, and even customize your own appearance.

Read the rest here.

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SP Happenings #15
Posted Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 18:55 CET by Sorcerer

Some good news is one the menu for this week's Happenings. The new SP design and adless subscription system is finally complete (thanks to Catbert), tested, and ready for implementation as soon as I can fully dedicate myself to it (hopefully by the middle of next week). I should be getting the samples of the SP merchandise in a week or two (first reports say the items looks great!), so that project is nearing completion as well.

This week a new Temple of Elemental Evil forum news poster by the name of Elessar should start posting, and hopefully he'll prove capable of taking over Gopher's front page job.

As far as the next site update is concerned, I can't really give out any predictions for it yet. If I get many submissions which would require putting them online right away, I might do another site update before I actually start implementing the new design. However, if not, I'll rather try to get the new design up as soon as possible.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Monday, September 15, 2003 - 20:55 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Skills: A few things:

Skills never get removed, only added, so even if we would do the Intimidate/Bluff thing, Persuade would stay. We are exploring other skills as well. Any time we add skills to the game, you have a greater freedom in customizing your character, but you are also forced to specialize a bit more, because there are more skills you can distribute your points in, thats just how it works

Spellcasters In HotU: There are options for spellcasters to protect themselves at epic levels. Spells do not change however, unless their description says they scale). Of course there are monsters that are more of a problem to spellcaster (i.e. Golems) and monsters that are more a problem to Fighers (i.e. Bebilith).

FAQ Update: On that matter:

- System requirements are usually discussed late in the development cycle, for obvious reasons. HotU requirements are not finalized yet, but it won't be a GF4.

- It was surely ok to post it here, after all its one purpose of this board to ask us those questions

- If someone claims that a game requires a GF4, I, as an avid gamer, would not believe it. You usually can not affort to loose more than approx 60%-70% of all gamers out there running a card lower than GF4 by making a game require it, especially in the case of NWN which had fairly low requirements.

David Gaider, Designer

Drow Whip: The drow tentacle rod is drow-specific, not Greyhawk-specific. And as I recall, it's technically a form of whip.

Quote: Quote: My hope: An automated message will appear for the player telling them that an item property has been removed (or added). If left to the module designer, they might just be lazy (or downright mean) and not give any such warning. Thus, I hope the game engine will give you such a warning itself.

The engine will not do that. Any such item scanning is done entirely by script. Ideally an open server would post its item policies before-hand, but that's a matter of etiquette.

Quote: Is the gnome hammer included?

No, the gnome hook hammer is not included. Begin kvetching.

Quote: If you're talking about familiars,then i would certainly like to see the frog.Not that i like frogs,but it gives +2 to Constitution

Exactly the reason not to include the frog. Whenever one of my players (which always seems to be a gnome wizard with maxed-out Con, somehow) takes that stupid frog familiar (sheepishly asking me if it's okay) I always reach across the table and smack them in the head. On the good news front, I believe there is at least one new familiar being added in HotU. I'm not in on that process, however, so you'll have to wait for official news on it.

Quote: Does this mean that you can remove it permanent so if the character is exported the properties removed from the items will be missing even in a new server?

Yes.

Quote: Does it also mean you will be able to cycle through an items properties and catching the ones you want to remove.

Yes.

Quote: Also, I hope you can remove properties added directly to the item (not through dynamic properties).

Not sure what you mean by this. If you mean you hope properties that were added via the toolset can be removed as well as ones added via scripting, then yes.

Quote: Actually I think this dynamic item property might give the local servers a up-swing. You will actually be able to play on a local server without fear of uber items.

This is part of the idea. The DM's and servers need the scripting hooks into item properties so they can actively monitor the true abilities of any items coming into their game... and now they will get them. I imagine there will be a fair number of "item scanning" scripts available not long after release.

Quote: The only fear of this I have is that people will play on a server that restricts some item abilities, so it removes them from the player's item(s). The player doesn't realze this, and saves his/her character when they're done. Next time they play they might be in for a rude awakening...

There is nothing to stop the player from making the item in the toolset again and giving it to their character, is there? It would amount to a minor annoyance at best.

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Temple of Elemental Evil Forum Highlights
Posted Monday, September 15, 2003 - 20:48 CET by Gopher

Here are recent Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Huy Nguyen, Magic and Interface

Quote: Man I need a Dragonlance series of games... that's special!

i picked up the new (?) Dragonlance D20 sourcebook the other day! i didn't even know it was coming out, so it was kind of pleasant surprise. :D ...haven't really had a chance to go thru it but i hope it's good. i sincerely hope they aren't assuming campaigns to be played in that dumb "Age of Mortals" thing...

How does spontantious casting work?

while the radial menu is open, holding down the SHIFT key will "transform" all spells to their appropriate spontaneous version (if possible - i.e. you can't spontaneous domain spells).

Quote: Can NPC followers loot corpses, and how much?

i'm quickly skimming the thread, so forgive me if i missed anything, but yes NPC's that loot may loot heavy items, bringing them into worse encumbrance states. to get them to remove items that you as a PC do not have access to, one option is to take them to a shopkeeper, and they will sell items "as they wish".

cross your fingers! :)

Quote: [On Screenshots] The really cool part, is that the skeletons seem to be summoned/raised and fighting on the party's side!

wow whip! where did u pick up this screenie? this is part of the batch i made last week, but i didn't know they had been put up yet. cool deal!

yes, the Skeleton Gnolls are commanded by my Eeeeeevil dwarven cleric!

let me try to narrate what's happening:

Meleny, the highlighted NPC, has just hurled a Produce Flame at one of the bugbears that is webbed. I was unable to snap a screenshot in time, but that set the whole Web on fire, burning those trapped.

the "action bar" is only at yellow right now, signifying that Meleny has just used a standard action (the green portion of the bar) to cast Produce Flame and used the free touch attack to throw the flame at a bugbear.

the PC's currently have at least Bless and Prayer active. the large character currently has Enlarge and probably Bull's Strength active, and also is flatfooted (seen by the "boot" on top of her portrait, she is the left-most along the bottom). along that note, Meleny is currently under Medium Encumbrance (the "bell" looking icon on her portrait, second from the bottom right).

conversely, the Prayer has negatively affected the bugbears. a few of the bugbears may have Barbarian Raged and/or used a Potion of Bull's Strength (that actually happens later in the combat, IIRC).

i initiated combat with the bugbears and the high priest on the far right manually, even though i was currently working on a mission for the high priest; i figured this area might make for some good combat screenshots.

are the rest of my screenies up somewhere? i'm kinda curious, even though i have all of them sitting right here on my hard drive, heh.

hope that was informative!

[edit]: oh yes, that is my monk in the bottom right corner - you can't really see it, but he is in a monk stance; i think i took a few screenies of him kicking and punching and doing twirling kicks. it's hard to show with screenshots though :/

the monk's critical hit anim is pretty sweet, i haven't gotten a critical with my monk, but i've seen others' do it!

my gnome wizard currently has Mirror Image cast upon her; she's right next to Meleny. it's hard to see the ghostly images in this shot, but i took at least 1 or 2 more that more clearly shows the images

Steve Moret, Lead Programmer

Quote: What is the ideal Ironman party? I'm going for: Dwarf Fighter, Human Cleric of Pelor, Elf Ranger/Rogue, Elf Wizard, Human Bard.

I think the ideal ironman party is going to end up going back to the inn several time for fresh meat if you know what I mean.

Quote: Can we replace fallen party members with new characters (we roll) at the inn or are you referring to gathering NPC's?

You can roll new ones up at the inn, and if you're playing ironman I applaud you if you never have to do that. And yes, to answer someone elses question, there is no point buy in Ironman.

Dan the Intern, Intern and 2D Artist

Quote: [On the Walkthrough Movie] Is this the secret passage from outside the moathouse or something else?

There was indeed a hidden door which was taken out. After you defeat the ogre guard, Lubash, There was a sliding wall/door which concealed a long stairway to an even lower part of the moathouse. This door was taken out and is the one mentioned in the video.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Sunday, September 14, 2003 - 19:20 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Beholders: Our new beholders have 10 eyestalks, they drunk some magical grow- 5 -totally -natural -stalks -w ithin- a-w eek elixir they found in the art department a while ago. And yes, spells are originating from the beholders eyes, we got some shiny new MONSTER_NODES on them. They are running their own "mini-AI", optimized to their special abilities and their weaknesses ... and your weaknesses.

You can not target body parts in NWN. You can, however, use spells like blindness to make the beholder happy I guess.

Placeables: There is a placeable hobbyhorse object as well....

Color Names: Color names were removed because people were abusing them in various ways (which we will never discuss as colored names are still out there in some fashion), impacting other peoples gameplay experience and server stability, and that is something we *care* about. To make them work without these side results would require programmer and qa time, which we rather put into something more important for us and most of our fans. People may disagree about this decision, but that is how decisions work, right? We rather put in a new head, a new weapon or something similar in the game, allowing people to customize their characters without impacting other peoples gameplay performance, than trying to make something work for players which was never intended to work for them.

David Gaider, Designer

Merchant System: I believe some big changes are, indeed, due for the merchant system very soon now. I think they are in an upcoming patch courtesy of the Live Team, however, and not particular to HotU. The details on that will have to come later, though.

Ghost VFX: The ghost VFX means that we have a ghost in the game that I didn't want all glowy. Mirror Image is a resource-hogging, very difficult-to-implement spell that has very little pay-off.

Quote: something like mirror image should have been small beans.

Not really. There's nothing in the engine that could create a bunch of "alternate images"... which would have to be models that copy the main model and move exactly as the main model is moving. I mean... I guess it could be done, but we're talking a whole new kind of animation-copying system put in that doesn't currently exist, all for one spell. Magic Missile is even just a custom projectile graphic, no biggee, it's not the same at all.

Quote: How would old characters be handled? Let's say you had a bard with a persuade of 23. Would he also get a Intimidation of 23 and a Bluff of 23?

Of course not. He wouldn't be changed at all. He'd have a Persuade of 23, and an Intimidation and Bluff of 0.

Quote: How would a new character be handled? You create a new bard. Do they get additional skill points to put in bluff and intimidation?

No, you do not get any additional skill points. And, as was mentioned above, the thing we're doing (currently) is having 2 of the 3 skills used in any persuasion instance, though with possibly different DC's. So if you wanted the secret password out of the guild doorman, you could trick it out of him or threaten it out of him (a bit more difficult because he feels pretty safe behind that door) but you couldn't convince him nicely to give it to you.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 15:49 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Sleeping NPCs: I think it is now NW_FLAG_SLEEPING_AT_NIGHT, but I doubt it is working correctly anyway. Judging from the comments in x0_i0_generic, it seems there is no code to actually make the NPC sleep at night.

Quote: Bioware said they're putting Onhit:UniqueEffect in it, thus you can script effects which only work upon a critical, or upon a sneak attack

Nope, you can not do that. The while the OnHitCastSpell script allows you to fire most offensive spells as well as your own custom script (much like OnActivateItem), it does not know wheter the Hit that triggered it was a normal hit, sneak attack, critical or whirlwind attack.

Quote: Also, in the OnHit scripts, can we check to see what the combat roll for the attack was? I mean, can we find out if the attacker rolled a '20' on their d20? Can we determine if it was a critical hit or not? And if it is a critical hit, can we determine if the first hit (the threat) was a '20' or not?

No. Basically the OnHit thing is already a performance hog when used on a larger scale (i.e. whirlwind attack fighter against group of goblins), so adding those functions is likely not going to happen.

Quote: Okay, I've got a couple questions. If I have a +1 longsword and add a temporary effect of +3 to the sword, it reverts back to +1 when the effect wears off, right?

Yes it does.

Quote: I mean, it won't fail because it already has an enhancement effect already, right?

As long as the bonus is of a different DURATION_TYPE it won't fail. If you add two boni of the same DURATION_TYPE, the higher one will be active

Quote: Same question for effects. Does a 2d6 fire effect override a d4 fire effect? I'd assume yes...

I guess so, but it may stack as well, I would have to test that. There will be an include file dealing with common item property functions which has one function that works as a wrapper around AddItemProperty, allowing you to specify if properties should replace existing properties of the same type, ignore them or fail if a property of that type already exists.

Quote: Can you say how the feats are being added? Is there a specific command for each feat you can apply or is it a more general GiveItemFeat (object oItem, int nFeat)? I would like the more generic form since we could then make dynamic player skins for subrace and extended domains a PC might get.

There is no GiveFeat command and I don't think there will ever be one, as it would cause serious trouble with ELC. What you can do is add an itemproperty ItemPropertyBonusFeat on a hidden creature hide armor equipped on the player by scripting.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Quote: Well... ok, seems like we won't have it for this week-end...(Patch 1.32)

Correct. Testing continues and we will know more on Monday morning.

David Gaider, Designer

Quote: How much new placeables/sounds will be added approx. to HotU?

Lots.

Quote: Will there be generic placeables and sounds not used in HotU campaing? (not related to the Underdark?)

I'd say most of the placeables aren't Underdark-specific, rather.

Quote: Will we finally have a bar placeable?

Yes, though ironically it will be for a drow tavern. If you ask the Live Team really really nicely, however, they might get a non-drowish bar made for a patch... which would greatly lessen the painful irony.

Persuade: Well, we were kinda thinking about splitting Persuade up into Persuade, Intimidation and Bluff. No Wilderness Lore, though, or Knowledge skills.

Quote: could you tell me if we actually have a new item PROPERTY that allows throwing weapons to return.

No.

Quote: Does that mean the rest of the feats will be available to add onto items as properties?

Nope. Gosh, there's just no question that we can answer that you guys can't come up with more questions about, eh?

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Chat With Troika
Posted Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 15:36 CET by Veldrin

Eye on Troika will be hosting a chat with Troika about The Temple of Elemental Evil on September 16th at 4pm (GMT-8). This chat will take place on Gamesnet (irc.gamesnet.net) in #eye-on-troika.

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Temple of Elemental Evil Screenshots at GameBanshee
Posted Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 15:27 CET by Veldrin

GameBanshee has posted its final Temple of Elemental Evil Screenshots of the Week. They can be seen here.

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Tim Cain Interview at The Greyhawk Chronicles
Posted Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 4:16 CET by Veldrin

The Greyhawk Chronicles has posted an Interview with Tim Cain about The Temple of Elemental Evil. Here's a clip:

1) On several occasions you and your team members mentioned the "cool stuff list". Several features from that list didn't make it into the game (like sub-races) but can you tell us which "cool" features made it into the game?

The Trip attack made it in, which several team members really wanted. Spiked chains made it in, so the fans that were hollering for them can feel appeased. Followers taking their own share of loot and selling it back in town made it in, which is something that I personally wanted. Giants shaking the screen when they walk and bash their clubs made it in, which is an example of something simple and not earth-shattering, but it's just really cool to see.

Read it all here.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 3:53 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Tim Smith, Programmer

ResRef Vs. Tags: The resource reference (resref) and the tag are two different things. The tag is used by scripts to help locate the object in question. The resref is the name of the template used to create the object.

David Gaider, Designer

Quote: You just asked people to list a mistake, and I thought this engine that seems to cause all sorts of problems and prevent all sorts of features from being implemented many months later seemed like a good enough mistake to me.

We don't look on the Aurora engine as a mistake of any sort. When you start putting together an engine, you have to decide what's going to go where and how it's all going to work beforehand... you might regret some of those decisions afterwards (especially the ones that seemed perfectly reasonable at the time), but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the engine itself. The Aurora engine is plenty flexible enough... but aging, of course, just as the Infinity Engine did before it. We went through the same process of updates and changes to the IE being needed as we'd regularly go in and rearrange its guts, until eventually it reached a state where technology had improved enough that it was worth it to make a completely new engine. The stuff that they're talking about is just a matter of time and resource allocation. Technically speaking anything is possible with the current engine: robes, cloaks, subraces, mounts, psionics, spellcasting prestige classes, what-have-you... it's all a matter of exactly how much work you want to put into it. Like I said elsewhere, "engine limitation" is a relative term based on how realistic the amount of work that's required to do what's being asked is compared to the cost and the "bang" for that cost.

Let me put it this way: you build a house a certain way built on the blueprints that were made for it. You have a particular type of foundation, you put in a particular type of roofing material, you have your wiring done a certain way... all of it serves a particular purpose. After its built, it's easy enough to put on a fresh coat of paint or change a window or maybe even install a new roof. If you decide then, however, that you want a whole new den put in the basement and have the entire thing re-wired and with extra insulation (because it's a bit cool down there), the construction guy might say "Welll... we can do it, but we'll have to rip apart a lot of stuff down there. It would have been way easier to do this back when we built the place." The translation is that it COULD be done, of course, but it'll take some doing. Enough doing that the cost of which might make said home-owners think whether it meets their budget or not. Would they really use the den at all? Maybe a hot tub outside on the deck would get more use.
Then there's telling the construction guy that you want the house's foundation changed to a different type of concrete... and while they're at it, you're interested in re-insulating the entire house with something hypoallergenic. You ask the construction guy if this is impossible... to which the construction guy says "Well, technically no, it's not IMPOSSIBLE..." but he has a hell of a time trying to explain to you exactly the problems involved in such an undertaking.

With the Aurora engine, we've got a nice house that's already fully-built, and only so much money to go around for renovations and such. There's some stuff that would be really nice to do... the wife wants a huge walk-in closet, for instance, but that would take rearranging the rooms upstairs and we just can't afford to spend that much just so the wife has somewhere to display her shoes. Heck, I'd like a skylight in the living room, but the contractor tells me that the way the house was built, there's a support wall where I want my light and it just can't be removed. Yes, we're sort of wishing we'd made it 4 bedrooms instead of 3 (no going back now), and that fireplace really would have been nice. Come to think of it, next house we build, we've really got to re-think that whole mexican tile thing we do in the kitchen. We fixed up the basement nice earlier this year, however, and we're planning to add on a deck right away (with hot tub!), so it's not all bad. So add this onto my list of Really Dumb Analogies but it works, more or less. The engine is a great old gal that may not do everything we want her to do as time moves on, but she does everything that was asked of her to begin with. If we don't have the resources to put together a full project team and rip out her guts and add do all the big changes that are being asked for, it's because you only get that team when you have a full project (surprise!)... like with a sequel, and not with a year-old release that doesn't charge its users a monthly fee to play (sweet deal though that is).

HotU Fixes: One side note related to things that are brought up on the message boards and us acting upon them: a while back some of you might remember that it was mentioned here how irritating it was that spellcasting would often be interrupted by the mage taking attacks of opportunity. I said at the time that we weren't aware of that and I would report it. Received word today that this has now been fixed for HotU. No more abandoning your spellcasting to take attacks of opportunity. Maybe not the biggest thing, but there ya go.

Stupid PC Dialog: No, we won't be doing "stupid" dialogue in HotU. Characters with low Int will occasionally be restricted from selecting certain options... or high Int characters will get their own unique dialogue options... but low Int characters will still sound normal when they speak

Quote: Can we ask questions about this? If so, how was the fix made?

You can ask, but I'm not up on the details. I just got my bug-tracker that I put in on the issue sent back to me as "fixed", and that's about all I know at this point.

Quote: Does the implemented fix also fix the AoO interrupting potion drinking problem, since I believe they are related?

I assume it would, since drinking a potion is still spell-casting, as far as the engine is concerned.

Quote: Do AoO's now appear in the action queue, such that they are taken after the action they would have interrupted finishes, or are they just given up if you aren't ready to take one when the opportunity arises?

No, AoO do not appear in the action queue. I am certain of that. So most likely it is just a case of you giving up the AoO entirely. I've yet to see this in-game, however.

Quote: Can we get a final clarification on actual dynamic properties? (as in giving a chainmail suit an ac of 6 and a dex bonus of up to 23, sort of thing)

Okay, just to clarify, we are talking only about the magical item properties, here... enchantment bonuses, AC bonuses, skill negatives, what-have-you. Anything from the toolset list where you drag the properties over to the right hand side to have them applied to the item. We are NOT talking about regular item properties such as weight, base AC for armor, cost and so forth... though of course some of these things can definitely be affected by the magical item properties. So you CAN take a suit of chainmail and apply an AC bonus to raise its total AC to 6, and apply a Dex bonus (err... not sure if you can do +23, but there you have it). These properties all have their Get function (now with sub-property types so they're actually useful!) and Set, which can permanently affect the item, as Georg said. Not only do you get this, you ALSO get the OnEquip/OnUnequip module event and (I believe) an OnHit(CastUniqueSpell) for weapons and armor/shields... which should pretty much fill in the gap for scripting unique item properties (like properly cursed stuff).

Quote: Max Dex Bonus to AC is one of the things I believe the dynamic item property scripting can't modify.

Correct. I said that, didn't I? You can add a Dexterity bonus but you can't change the base Max Dex Bonus property of the armor.

Quote: What I wanna know is if you can make a cursed weapon or armor, so it works fine for a while - but suddenly change you into a chicken or a cow!

Why not? With the OnEquip/OnUnEquip event you can detect whether someone has donned said armor... script in your delay and away you go. The best thing about scripting cursed effects, in my opinion, is that they don't show up on the list of item properties when you examine the item. As for the item that speaks when it hits something, yes... that can be done, too. The OnHit(Cast Unique Spell) is actually less of a spell and more of a script (though it is tied into a module event and not a script that is part of the item itself). So the "spell" that is run when the sword hits something might very well trigger a sound to be played or a string displayed.

Quote: I like this idea V. As far as a "blue" VFX, couldn't we just use: int VFX_DUR_ETHEREAL_VISAGE?

No. Item visual effects work a little differently. You will have the ability to apply the current visual effects (fire, green acid, holy glow, etc.) to a weapon without the corresponding damage being needed... and one assumes that more could be added by the community... but there is no blue glow effect, currently.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Item Properties: You can add any itemproperty that is in the toolset under Item Properties to an item via scripting. It's a bit like this:

AddItemProperty( DURATION_TYPE_PERMANENT, ItemPropertyKeen(),oItem)

or

AddItemProperty( DURATION_TYPE_TEMPORARY, ItemPropertyEnhancementBonus(1),oItem, RoundsToSeconds(6))

That should get you a small idea on what to expect. You're going to love it. And, yes, DURATION_TYPE_PERMANENT means it carries from server to server.

Quote: Are these item properties added by scripting taken into account when determining the item level requirement?

They add to cost if added with DURATION_TYPE_PERMANENT. There is indeed a new OnHitCastSpell, it fires for weapons when hitting a creature and for armor when being hit. You can assign many offensive spells to this property, plus there is a UniquePower spell for OnHit as well, so you do not need to fiddle around with 2da files to add new spells OnHit.

No, you can not use EffectVisualEffect with Items. There is an ItemPropertyVisualEffect() which can be used to make a weapon glow like they would glow when you have added i.e. high elemental damage, divine or vorpal properties to the weapon, but you can not use visual effects from the effect system with items, as these are not itemproperties.

Yepp, there is a OnHit: Unique power which fires a certain script you can add your module specific OnHitSpell Code to, similar to the CastSpell:Unique Power.

Quote: Not to draw conclusions or anything, but I wonder if anything else stays around while you rest. For instance, Continual Flame is pretty useless because it goes away, making it effectively no better than the Light cantrap.

That was a bug that has been fixed. You can now also cast it on items and they will get a permanent light property attached to them.

Quote: I'm thinking so .. but best to ask. So, will keen edge and flame weapon stick around on weapons even when caster rests?

No, Temporary Item Properties created through scripting wear of when the caster rests, just like Temporary Effects.

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Temple of Elemental Evil Shipping Early!
Posted Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 1:36 CET by Sorcerer

We have just received a press release from Atari announcing The Temple of Elemental Evil will ship one week earlier than previously announced:

ATARI DISCOVERS RIFT IN SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM; THE TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL EVIL TO SHIP ON SEPTEMBER 16

Popular Dungeons & Dragons World of Greyhawk to Make
First Interactive Appearance on September 16

LOS ANGELES – Sept. 12, 2003 – Atari and Troika Games are pleased to announce that The Temple of Elemental Evil™ will now ship on September 16th and not September 23rd as previously reported. After years of research into the science of time travel and the mysticism of interactive entertainment distribution, Atari has achieved a breakthrough in the melding of the two disciplines. As a result of this revolutionary achievement, The Temple of Elemental Evil will now appear on retail stores shelves nationwide seven days earlier than originally anticipated.

Published by Wizards of the Coast, the World of Greyhawk, remains one of the most popular Dungeons & Dragons® campaign settings of all time and will make its first interactive appearance with the September 16th release of The Temple of Elemental Evil. The Temple of Elemental Evil will feature an exciting party-based single player campaign, an engaging storyline based on the classic D&D® adventure of the same name as well as a faithful translation of the latest 3.5 edition rules.

The Temple of Elemental Evil will be available at retail stores nationwide with an estimated retail price of $49.95 and an ESRB rating of “T” for Teen. Additional information about The Temple of Elemental Evil can be found online at www.greyhawkgame.com, which features message boards, wallpapers, screenshots, game play information and much more.

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Temple of Elemental Evil Bonus Map Revealed
Posted Friday, September 12, 2003 - 0:53 CET by Sorcerer

Amazon.com has put online a digital version of the bonus map which comes with a pre-order of Dungeons & Dragons: The Temple of Elemental Evil. To get this bonus map along with your copy of the game, pre-order it at Amazon.com.

Here's the map:

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Thursday, September 11, 2003 - 21:23 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Petrify: There is a variable you can set on a creature to prevent effect petrify from being cancelled. Check around the end of x0_i0_spells.nss, in the spellsDispelMagic (?) function. I am not sure if that property is in your toolset already, but you might want to grant the statue an item with SpellImmunity: stone to flesh or even better, Spell Immunity: Level 9 spells or lower

HotU Features: Dynamic itemproperties are confirmed. Setname is confirmed not to be in.

Damage Caps: Any spell that has a cap in its description will not advance above this cap in terms of damage. Some, like Flame Arrow, are not capped by the book...

Glyph Of Warding: Glyph of Warding does not go away when you rest, allowing you to secure your resting place against those evil wandering monsters found in the underdark

HotU Events: You got an OnEquip/UnEquip event handler in hordes

Quote: well I might be stating the obvious Torias, but if you look around, it seems that this is all we are doing on this forum. Nothing is really ever taken into considderation, because this is all useless babbling. Bioware and its associates do what they want, and we are basically talking to the wind.

Wrong, we are *considering* quite a lot of things requested by the community, but there is a difference between considering and actually implementing everything the community wants, right?

A few examples:
Support for most 2das in hakpaks
Support for multiple hakpaks
Toolset plot wizard
Kobolds
OnEquip/OnUnEquip Events
Dynamic Item Properties
Arcane SpellFailure +/- properties
Get/SetDeity
Epic Levels
Dwarven Waraxe, Whip

All things requested by the community and integrated into the game at some point in the past or future, some of that being major changes. But, if you are talking about the +1 spellcasting PRC, I guess the talking into the wind is actually more on our part. Anyway, creating hidden wishlist threads won't help anything, the featureset for Hordes is pretty much locked down already.

David Gaider, Designer

Large Monsters: Yeah, I'm afraid handling larger monsters is something that sounds cool but in practice would require an engine specifically geared to deal with them... you'd need pretty fancy camera work to keep it from being a big mess, for starters, and very different combat animations to deal with a completely different scale of combat. At the very least, the field of play would have to be so much larger. I think an engine that did all this is probably possible currently... but to combine it with an engine that does everything else that NWN does... well... that's going to take a while.

Quote: Come on Torias, show me the last post where you critisised Bioware. They bought your silence with a character in SoU OC...

Pfft. Getting a character in the game named after you is generally a dubious honor at best. And Torias can be plenty critical... in fact, if I hear his Parry or Discipline diatribe one more time I'm going to puke all over him. But it's easy to just throw out criticism, isn't it? Just spew some bile, and if anyone tries to defend themselves or be constructive, call them a weenie. We listen to our community plenty and value their constructive input. That input leads to a lot of discussion here and sometimes changes in the game, but either way it's all part of an ongoing dialogue between us and the people who play our games. And the fact that someone who doesn't come at us with like a sledgehammer with a grudge but chooses to be constructive and informative with the other fans needs to defend himself in this context still amazes me.

Quote: And about the Drow dual wield thing... If you played a Drow who didn't dual wield, I would find that rather out of character, since from my perspective (even if it were just a device in a novel) that is how most Drow go about their weapons training.

Fairly or not, this is the only part of your post I'll pick on. Is it true that dual wielding is a style specifically trained to drow males? Yes. Would a dual-wielding drow be a reasonable character, regardless of other traits? Certainly. Would he still be identified with Drizzt? Most likely. This isn't the character's fault, really... the fact exists that there is this overwhelmingly popular character that is identified with certain traits. The fact that these traits might not be specific to that character is irrelevant, and as a writer you just have to know that. I suppose it's possible that an archetypal character could be made different enough to distinguish itself from whoever it seems to emulate... but you'd have to add some pretty drastic and very clear points of difference in there that the reader would immediately see. It's nobody's fault that a "kindly, white-haired mage" archetype exists... and it's not impossible for such a character to be well-written, regardless... you just have to be aware of the similarity and work around it because you're automatically picking up all the "baggage" that comes with that character (tired of Drizzt? Well, chances are, then, that you'll automatically be just as tired of any Drizzt-like character that comes down the pipe, regardless of their relative merit). That's my objections on a writing level, anyhow. From a gaming perspective... that's a whole other kettle of fish.

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Hordes of the Underdark Preview at UGO
Posted Thursday, September 11, 2003 - 20:34 CET by Veldrin

UGO has posted a preview of Neverwinter Nights' second expansion pack, Hordes of the Underdark. Here's a clip:

Feature-wise, the game introduces several new prestige classes to the mix. First, the Red Dragon Disciple, a warrior whose main quest is to harness the power of dragons (and sports some nifty wings coming out of his back, to boot). There's also the Weaponmaster, a class whose benefits in hand-to-hand and ranged combat make them a force to be reckoned with. And, for all those Gimli fans out there, you can work up to becoming a Dwarven Defender, who makes up for his lack of stature with some pretty severe axe play. But for those who’re worried that they'll be all by their lonesome adventuring in the Underdark, no worries, as this expansion introduces the opportunity to hire not one, but two mercenaries to fight with you (some of which will definitely be familiar to fans of the previous games).

Read it all here.

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Scott Kurtz Interview at Neverwinter Vault
Posted Thursday, September 11, 2003 - 20:24 CET by Veldrin

Neverwinter Vault has completed an interview with Scott Kurtz, creator of the very popular online comic, PvP Online. Topics of the interview include his background, inspirations, the process he goes through, as well his thoughts on NWN. Here's a clip:

2) PvP is enjoyed by thousands of people each day and arguably the top online comic in the gaming community. Could you share with us some history on how you got started and what was your inspiration for the strip.

I've been creating my own comic strips since the 4th grade. I drew comics all through elementary, high school and college. PvP started on MPOG.com, a now defunct gaming website that was looking for some cartoon content. It's popularity has been growing ever since.

PvP is heavily influenced by all the great sitcoms I grew up with. Cheers, Nightcourt and Newsradio are more a source of inspiration than any other comic strip or comic book. I love the theme of the office sitcom, where everyone is at odds with one another but deep down, their a family.

Read it all here.

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Last Week's Poll's Results
Posted Thursday, September 11, 2003 - 17:03 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: What is the longest time you've played a D&D CRPG without pause?
(386 votes total)

6-10 hours (145) 38%
11-15 hours (58) 15%
21+ hours (55) 14%
5 hours (42) 11%
16-20 hours (35) 9%
4 hours (23) 6%
3 hours (17) 4%
1 hour (8) 2%
2 hours (3) 1%

The majority of people who voted (38%) have played a D&D CRPG for 6-10 hours without pause at most.

The next largest group of people (15%) managed to play for 11-15 hours without interruption at most.

We also have some really hardcore fans here (14%) who managed to play without pause for 21+ hours!

11% of poll participants played a moderate 5 hours at most. 9% played for pretty amazing 16-20 hours. 6% played for 4 hours at most, and the rest (7%), between 1-3 hours.

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Temple of Elemental Evil Interview at GameZone
Posted Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - 23:56 CET by Veldrin

GameZone has posted an interview with Tim Cain from Troika about The Temple of Elemental Evil. Here is a clip:

Question: This title utilizes Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 ruleset. What made you settle on that for the overriding rules for the game? What, in your opinion, do you think makes the D&D rulesets so widely regarded and more or less the standard for these styles of games?

Tim: Troika was working on the Temple of Elemental Evil (ToEE) using the 3.0 ruleset when the announcement came about the upcoming release of the 3.5 ruleset. Since this release would occur before the release of ToEE, we felt that it was important to not hit the shelf using an obsolete set of rules. In addition, many of the changes to the rules were sorely needed improvements, especially in balancing some of the classes like druids and rangers.

As for why D&D is considered the standard ruleset for CRPG’s, I think it’s mostly historical. Most players of CRPG’s have been exposed to D&D already, either as a paper-and-pencil game or in earlier CRPG’s. This exposure makes them more comfortable with the D&D rules instead of learning something new.

Read it all here.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - 23:21 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Quote: Soooo??? Is it OK ? I'em getting impatient to have this 1.32, Is the messiah comming tonight ? Stability + SoU : Can't wait anymore.... neither can our 80players...

Testing continues. Neither a yes or no right now.

David Gaider, Designer

HotU & SoU: Since HotU doesn't require SoU, it would be foolish for us to put anything in HotU's campaign specifically geared for prestige classes that only appear in SoU, I'd think. I should amend this to say that I'm only talking about class-specific plots and such. Epic prestige classes will still apply to the SoU classes, of course, as will any other changes that affect prestige classes.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Golems: The new golems are immune to pretty much all spellcasting except crumble.

Tim Smith, Programmer

Escape Characters: As of XP1, there is no way to place a double quote in a literal string. The only escape currently supported is \n

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Temple of Elemental Evil Character Creation Screenshots
Posted Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - 21:27 CET by Sorcerer

Atari has made available a batch of 85 (!) screenshots of creation of various characters in The Temple of Elemental Evil. You can check them all out right here at SP. The thumbnails are all on one page, so those of you with dial-up should be prepared for a bit longer page load. ;)

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Neverwinter Wednesday
Posted Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - 21:04 CET by Sorcerer

Another week's around and here are the latest NWN Wednesday goodies:

New Hordes Spells
The Hordes of the Underdark spells featured this week are Battletide, Great Thunderclap, and Iron Guts! There is also an additional spell released to fansites this week - check the news post below! Discuss.

Spurn's Weapon Pack
Like to hit things? Is there something about a mace that just makes you want to smash something? If so, then Community Member Spurn has created a Hak Pak for you! We profile Spurn and his weapon Hak Pak for Neverwinter Nights in this article by Jay Watamaniuk. Discuss.

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New Hordes of the Underdark Spell Revealed
Posted Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - 20:59 CET by Sorcerer

BioWare released another new HotU spell you can read about here:

Glyph of Warding

Caster Level(s): Cleric 3

Innate Level: 3

School: Abjuration

Descriptor(s): Sonic

Component(s): Verbal, Somatic

Range: Short

Area of Effect / Target: Large

Duration: 1 Turn / 2 Levels

Additional Counter Spells:

Save: Reflex 1/2

Spell Resistance: Yes

The caster creates a small, magical zone that can detect the passage of enemy creatures. When the field is activated, it explodes, doing 1d8 points of sonic damage per two caster levels to all creatures within the area of effect, to a maximum of 5d8.

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Site News - New Additions
Posted Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - 2:23 CET by Sorcerer

Subsection Updates -> Fantasy Books

Forgotten Realms Books subsection: The Sapphire Crescent (The Scions of Arrabar) added.

Dragonlance Books subsection: The Nightmare Lands & To the Gates of Palanthas (Chronicles Trilogy - Young Reader Adaptation) added, Brothers Majere new paperback added, Sacred Fire (The Kingpriest Trilogy) added.

Terry Pratchett Books subsection: Monstrous Regiment added.

3rd Edition D&D Books subsection: Core Rulebook Gift Set (3.5e) & Official Roleplaying Soundtrack (Core Products) added, Player's Guide to Faerun (Forgotten Realms Material) added, Arcana Unearthed, The Diamond Throne, DM's Screen and Player's Guide (Sword & Sorcery Studious Accessories) added, Miniatures Handbook, Harbinger, Dragoneye, Archfiends Expansion Packs (Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures) added, Unearthed Arcana & Book of Exalted Deeds (Various Accessories) added.

Miscellaneous Books subsection: Return of the Damned (Dungeons & Dragons) added.

Subsection Updates -> Fantasy Worlds

Fantasy Movies subsection: Fantasy Movies List updated.

Subsection Updates -> Games

Baldur's Gate 2 & Throne of Bhaal and Icewind Dale & Heart of Winter new combo packs can now be ordered from our Game Store via Amazon.com.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Baldur's Gate

Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection: 1 mod moved after being wrongly placed among the IWD2 stuff with the previous site update.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Baldur's Gate 2

Walkthroughs & Guides subsection: Baldur's Gate II & ToB Walkthrough updated.

Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection: Deck of Many Things (ToB) Walkthrough updated.

TeamBG subsection: 1 mod added.

Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection: 3 mods added/updated, 1 portrait pack added, 4 soundsets added, 2 fan-made mods linked.

Miscellanea subsection: Character Comparison Table added.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Icewind Dale 2

Walkthroughs & Guides subsection: Icewind Dale II Walkthrough updated.

Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection: 1 portrait pack added.

Subsection Updates - Games -> Neverwinter Nights

Walkthroughs & Guides subsection: 3 SoU FAQ/walkthroughs added/updated, NWN Reference Guide updated, NWN Expansion Details page heavily updated with a ton of HotU info.

Tips, Tricks & Hints subsection: NWN & SoU Game Secrets updated, NWN Paladin Character Guide added.

Editors, Hacks & Custom Characters subsection: Character Sheet Generator added.

Miscellanea subsection: Hordes of the Underdark press release added.

Toolset & Related subsection:

Subsection #1: Sound Set File Listing added.

Subsection #3: Ten Caveats for the Novice Scripter added.

Subsection #7: 5 various new additions.

Subsection Updates - Games -> The Temple of Elemental Evil

Walkthroughs & Guides subsection: ToEE Introduction updated.

Miscellanea subsection: ToEE intro movie added, ToEE edited log of the latest chat added.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Tuesday, September 9, 2003 - 22:58 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Golems: While we can not change the existing golems on the palette, because this could render the original NWN campaign unplayable, the new golems definitly have "appropriate" hides...Golems used in the official campaign modules may or may not have new hides..., let them surprise you. Not to forget you can easily give them new hides with appropriate spell resistances in your campaign....

Quote: Yes perhaps by D&D mechanics mantles are supposed to protect against the spell. But how many characters in a properly DMd D&D game have 1 level of rogue and are then able to read any spell scroll they wish, and also have a limitless supply of these scrolls?

There is a limited Use Magic Device Skill roll Code coming up with Hordes of the Underdark. It will be active for scrolls only on HardCore + Difficult difficulty settings and require rogues to win a skillroll vs DC 25+SpellLevel to cast a scroll.

David Gaider, Designer

Parry: There are no plans on changing how Parry works in HotU. Maybe the Live Team might consider it, I'm not sure.

Quote: Oh, and by the way, I have never blamed Bioware for this and have always directed my frustration at Atari.

And we're thankful for that, to be sure. I would never want to defend the use of SecureRom, personally, and I completely understand your frustration (especially since all you obviously want to do is play NWN), but I personally do take issue with some of the views you are espousing.

Quote: But, that aside, and answering the next post at the same time: I have spent over £1000 on hardware to finish a LAN to play the game to support my hobby of D&D by using this product.

Would Atari be prepared to refund my expense of all this as well. I don't think so. So if I build a garage in anticipation of buying a car, and the car I buy is a lemon that doesn't work for me (although here this stupid analogy breaks down a bit, since this car would generally work fine for most others), the dealer now owes me for the garage?

Quote: I am sure you are using the generalised "you" when you refer to a thief, because I would be highly offended if you were referring to me for doing what I could to make my legitimate game work. I have tried going down the "official" route, but their response was terrible to say the least. One could even say that Atari are the thieves, as it feels like they have "taken my money and run" or "sabotaged the software" to no longer work.

Ah, yes. I actually meant to say that the pirates themselves are thieves, I didn't mean to say that you are or what you're doing is thievery. I do, however, mean to call a spade a spade. If you buy a product and it doesn't work for you or doesn't meet your satisfaction, you have the right to return that product to the point of sale as defective (in which case Atari hasn't run anywhere with your money). You do not have the right to go hacking the .exe to your satisfaction and claim that Atari has forced you into such measures.

Now by "you do not have the right" I do not mean that this is some heinous criminal activity that should result in Atari hiring goons to come and pimp-slap you around your apartment until you repent in shameful tears. I'd think it would, however, void your right to expect future support for the game as well as the ability to play it outside of a private LAN or similar network. The fact that we recognize most players really just want to play our game and get the most out of it despite such problems, however, means that most companies will overlook this kind of hacking while they try to find a more amicable solution. They really don't want people returning a product to the store that they could otherwise use, I'd imagine, neh?

Quote: Are there any plans to do away with the 'Take 20' when it comes to skill checks etc.

Not in HotU, no.

Quote: Well Dave, an easy fix to that problem is simply to give us more new weapons.

No, that won't happen. As for more details on the waraxe and the whip, you're going to have to wait for them. Won't be worth much of a Wednesday if we've spilled all our beans beforehand, after all.

Quote: I want to know why you only made two new weapons.

Because we're putting other things in that we feel are more important. Sure, as you say, putting in a few more weapons might not have been that difficult. But they would have added what? With an expansion that we have squeezed so *much* into, you've got to still realize that we can only do so much. We had to pick and choose where out time went.

Brent Knowles, Co Lead Designer

Item Switching AI: Actually, in regards to weapon switching we yanked all the automatic "try a different weapon" code from the henchmen AI before ship of Shadows. Why? It annoyed people. Because we added henchmen inventory control, the general consensus of our Q/A department and the Atari Q/A was that they wanted full control of what weapons the henchmen were using. They did not want the henchmen to ever switch weapons automatically. We pretty much assumed that if you were unhappy with the weapon the henchman was using, you'd equip them with a different one...The only auto switching is if you start a henchmen out with a ranged weapon, they will switch to melee if enemies get too close and then back to that ranged weapon after battle.

Robin Mayne, BioWare Webmaster

Quote: So the Demon Flesh Golem will be patched in at some point? Excellent, it is exactly what my module needs... Any ETA on its arrival?

Correct - the Demon Flesh Golem is currently scheduled to be released in the 1.33 update. We will have more information in the coming weeks after the 1.32 update is released.

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SP Happenings #14
Posted Tuesday, September 9, 2003 - 19:55 CET by Sorcerer

Rather unexpectedly, we've been thrown back on track with the SP redesign, which has slightly altered my plans (i.e. delayed the site update till later today). This time, however, we are making good progress on it and at least the whole layout should be finished soon, so I can finally start converting the content to it.

As far as the SP merch is concerned, the samples should arrive any day now (actually, they already should have), so hopefully I'll be able to check them out soon as well.

In other news, a position on the SP news team has opened (ToEE forum news coverage), so if you are interested in doing it, please check the sticky in the Sorcerous Sundries forum on our boards.

Anyway, back to the site update. People have a nasty habit of sending in a lot of content just before it's about to go up, so I'll probably have to leave some of it for the next update, otherwise this one won't go up for another two days...

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Sunday, September 7, 2003 - 23:32 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

WalkWaypoint: In short, no WW will not ever be the same again, I can try to make it as near as possible to the old version, but Floodgate changed a significant part of it for Shadows, and changing it back could break things in the Shadows Official Campaign - something we can not risk. That is the reason for this Global Variable added to reenable Area Transition Walking with WalkWaypoints instead of just readding this functionality without any switch - just think about the potential problems this could cause in a complex set of modules like SoU. And, finally, please don't misunderstand my above posts , this fix not going into an official patch soon is *not* because I am on the Hordes team and patches are done by the Live team, its because it is a siginificant change to a highly used function that requires lots of testing, and because the fix involves the new SetActionMode command which has not been added in the Live/XP1 scripting language but exists in the Hordes codebranch only. I'll do some tests with readding Facing for the waypoints anyway, thanks for the feedback.

As far as 1.30+ goes, you are not correct, but this shows just how deep this function is burried into the scripting system:

a) Classic modules also inherit the changes to WalkWaypoints, because the compiled versions of the creature AI scripts (nw_c2_defaultX) is taken from the game resources, and those have been recompiled with the new version of that function since 1.30 (see below)

b) The nw_c2_defaultX scripts include x0_i0_anims which, in turn, contains x0_i0_walkway. So the WalkWaypoints() called in those scripts comes from x0_i0_walkway

c) nw_i0_generic, as per 1.30+ contains x0_i0_walkway. So, even functions including nw_i0_generic use the new implementation. (see file header of nw_i0_generic).

Bottomline: There is only one implementation of WalkWayPoints, which is in x0_i0_walkway since 1.30, an include file which is included in most creature AI scripts. Even if you do not recompile an older module, it will most likely behave after the new function, unless your creatures have custom AI scripts compiled under 1.29-. As far as I can tell, Bioware never used the area crossing functionality of the old WalkWaypoints, because of the problems it spawns (creatures getting a lower AI level in uninhabited areas, causing them to take much longer to walk those areas as areas with players in them). Thats probably the reason why nobody ever missed that functionality in testing after Naomi reorganized creature AI. In any case, you are free to either take the fix provided here or wait for the official patch incorporating it, which will probably be in the patch that will released simultaneously to Hordes of the Underdark to ensure multiplayer compatibility with NWN classic.

Talktable: You should not modify the talktable, it introduces a major hurdle for players to enter your module. The Live Team is evaluating a "User defined talktable" feature that allows an additional, user created talktable to be associated with a module.

Discipline: Rangers and Monks get Discipline.

Stack Size: Only certain item have stacksizes. You can modify them with SetItemStackSize(?) but items who have a greyed out stacksize in the toolset can not be made stackable.

David Gaider, Designer

Quote: Anyway, on a serious note, how do you see the Aribeth character? Do you think she's better then those in BG2? Don't you think it means something that a lot of people reacted negative towards Aribeth's character? If a lot of people react negative towards one piece of your work(Aribeth), doesn't it mean you made something teenie weenie little bit wrong?

Personally, I think the Aribeth character is quite intriguing. I think the execution of how her story ended didn't go as well as we might have liked, but I'm willing to bet a lot of the vitriol that gets thrown her way by some is due to some peoples' feelings about the original campaign itself rather than any real flaws on Aribeth's part. Some people just like to go over the top in that regard, it's not hard to miss. As for a lot of people reacting negatively towards Aribeth... well so what? A lot of people have reacted positively, too. I'd think we did something a teeny weenie little bit wrong if the reaction was ambivalence, nothing else. I certainly wouldn't use Aarin Gend again... regardless of how good or bad he was used, I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen him mentioned. I remember the sheer hate spewing from some people at the mere mention that Jaheira was returning in BG2, and she was a fine character.

Truly, regardless of peoples' feelings about the original campaign or Aribeth's voice actor or whatever, if we think she's a viable character (and she obviously is) the single criteria that judges whether or not we use her again is whether she fits the story we're planning and that's it.

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

Language Strings: Anywhere you can enter a string such as a name or description, you can enter it in multiple languages. The language that appears to the player depends upon the language version of the game they're using. That is, owners of the North American and UK versions will see English, owners of the French version will see French and so on.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Localization: Just for clarification, external parties do our localization. Atari Europe does the non-English patch testing and approval. All non-English items are mostly out of our hands. 1.32 looks like it will be a release in all languages, though. And we are in Canada, not the US

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Online World Roundtables at RPG Vault
Posted Sunday, September 7, 2003 - 23:22 CET by Veldrin

RPG Vault has brought together five experienced developers for a discussion on character development in a feature they call Online World Roundtables. Here's a clip:

Brent Knowles
Lead Designer, Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark
BioWare
The most important facet of an RPG for me is generally the story - I like rich stories that propel me into an exciting world. Almost as important though is the game's character generation system. The more I can customize a character the better - though if the story is extremely strong, I am content with a system that offers fewer choices.

Playing RPGs, for me, is about experiencing events that normally exist only in my imagination. My fantasy world is shaped in large part by the novels I have read and the movies I have seen. It is great when a game has elements that remind me of the characters and scenarios in my favorite novels or movies. A game rises in my opinion if it gives me the opportunity to play my favorite character archetypes.

See the whole thing here.

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Temple of Elemental Evil Journal #6 at RPG Vault
Posted Sunday, September 7, 2003 - 23:11 CET by Veldrin

RPG Vault has posted their 6th Temple of Elemental Evil Journal, this time with Sean Craig. They talk about going through the final stages of game completion. Here's a clip:

Phase I - Panic
At this point, the game has just entered test, and you have a personal list of things to do a mile long. It is easy to feel overwhelmed at this point. You're trying to fix the horrible bug in your code before anyone else finds it and makes you look stupid. There are some systems that you know need major rewrites before they're ready to ship, and you have to redo them now so that the new code will get adequate testing. But the testers keep sending you bug reports, which you don't read, because anyone looking at the game for three minutes can see a dozen things that need to be changed. Your co-workers are coming into your office three or four times an hour with a problem that they expect you to drop everything to fix. This is a great time for excuses and delaying tactics. Basically, anything you can say that lets you get back to work on the stuff you need to work on instead of the stuff everyone wants you to work on. Some of my favorites:

1) Did you do a full get? This can delay the person for a couple hours easy.
2) Try rebooting. Only good for a couple minutes, but sometimes that's all you need before they get distracted.
3) Works on MY machine. This one pushes the blame off on the person who found the bug - obviously it's because of something they did.
4) That's a [someone not here] question. The old standby slough-off. Preferably, the someone not here has gone on vacation or left the company or died or something; that way, they can't come back and prove incontrovertibly that it is in fact your bug.
5) I haven't checked anything in, so it couldn't possibly be me. This one is great because they don't even know who to go to.
6) It's on my list. Usually, it takes people a couple of months before they realize what this REALLY means.
7) Wow. If that happens again, let me know.
8) That's the way it works now.
9) I fixed all those bugs yesterday.
10) No player is ever going to do that.
11) Any player who does that DESERVES to have the game crash.
12) We're beyond that point now.
13) If it's still in there tomorrow, I'll look at it.
14) You are lying.

Read it all here.

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Temple of Elemental Evil Forum Highlights
Posted Sunday, September 7, 2003 - 2:55 CET by Gopher

Here are recent Greyhawk: The Temple of Elemental Evil forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Steve Moret, Lead Programmer

System Requirements: Well, don't forget that it's still using the Aranum engine. I can't imagine the system reqs will be too outrageous.

The game doesn't "use" the Arcanum engine. It is based off of the Arcanum engine. Graphically and systematically it is a totally different game, however under the hood we were able to save 4-6 months of tools, OS abstraction, and object system management programming.

Dan the Intern (Intern and 2D Artist)

How many CD's with the game?

Last I heard, it was 2.

Quote: Does anyone know if the level of an NPCs scales when they join the party?

NPC's level do not scale when they join your party.

ie. If you have level 1 PC's and you ask a level 4 NPC follower to join your party he will still be a level 4 follower after he joins.

NPC's have their own agendas, so you may not choose feats/skills or anything else when they level up. And be careful...followers do indeed like to loot before you do.

"Damn, that guy took my wand!"

Quote: Are my eyes fooling me or is there more than just gold in her inventory?

Copper, Silver, Gold, and sweet sweet Platinum are in.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Sunday, September 7, 2003 - 0:58 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

European Players & Patch 1.32: Everyone is going straight to 1.32 at the same time. That makes more sense to us then taking EU to 1.31 while everyone else is at 1.32 and then getting EU to 1.32 weeks later.

Noel Borstad, Programmer

Model Scaling: It's not that the engine doesn't support scaling, it's that it looks really bad because all of the animations scale with it- all of a sudden the swings, hits, and reaction animations don't line up. It's a lot of work to fix the animations, and at that point you're creating a new creature variant.

David Gaider, Designer

Custom Content: While there will always be a large degree of customizability with NWN, and to a point we can add more as time passes (like allowing for custom .tlk files, as mentioned), NWN will never really be supported for Total Conversions. Why? Well, to a degree, because that's the way WotC wanted it. This is a D&D product and anything made on it is meant to be D&D... it's a "build your own D&D module" system, not "build your own RPG". I suppose we could have included the capacity for custom spell-making and custom classes and such at the design stages of NWN, but that simply wasn't what NWN was meant to be. Not to say that some conversion can't be done. But there's a big difference between us supporting custom content (new creatures, new models, new tilesets, etc.) and us supporting hacking (futzing with .2da files, changing the .exe, altering hard-coded rules, etc.). TC's come under hacking, for the most part, so there's only so far that that can ever be supported. The Live Team is also the one who would be responsible for such changes, so while you won't see anything on your list in HotU, you may see them released live eventually as the Live Team is able to address such things. Don't, however, expect to see them all at once.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Out Of Ammo: Out of Ammo comes, IMO, from within the scripted creature AI scripts that links into DetermineCombatRound...

Yes, I think its in x0_i0_equip, but I could be wrong. in any case its an _i0_ file.

Beta Patch: Guys, please this is a beta and it has a new version number, this means:

a) you can not play with anyone below that version number. Its not distributed through the updater client, so there are not too many people running this version, and even less servers.

b) it may have bugs, it is a beta. Make sure not to contact atari about them, but mail them, with detailed information, to us.

c) it is unlikely for any of your favorite servers or PWs to use it, its beta

d) its beta...

User Talktables: There are plans for user talktable support in Hordes. No plans for subraces (bad word)

Prestige Classes: you need 20 character levels to advance with a 10 level prestige class above level 10.

Quote: Ok, time to play stump the geek. I have an 8th lvl Paladin/5th lvl Blackguard. He is LE. I don't know anything about Epic level progression so I'm looking for some help here. Can this PC take Epic levels as a Blackguard, even through he is below 10th level in base class? He is LE mind you so he cannot take additional classes as a Paladin, unless I have him do some "good deeds" to get him back to LG. Thanx

To get epic levels in the blackguard class, you need at least 2 more level as paladin or any other non-prestige class. After that you can take levels as blackguard. But, since he is LE, you are stuck and can not advance in levels anymore until your alignment is redeemed or you take another class like rogue for 2 levels.

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Temple of Elemental Evil Preview at GameSpot
Posted Saturday, September 6, 2003 - 15:20 CET by Veldrin

GameSpot has posted another preview of Troika's Temple of Elemental Evil, complete with some screenshots. Here's a clip:

Troika is attempting to re-create as much of the pen-and-paper Dungeons & Dragons experience as reasonably possible with the game, which is why when creating a new character, you must randomly "roll" their ability scores (like dice) for attributes such as strength, dexterity, and intelligence, and you have no ability to adjust these numbers past swapping them around. While it was often easier to create characters in previous Dungeons & Dragons games by "min-maxing"; that is, increasing their important abilities and decreasing the unimportant ones (giving your front-line fighters a strength score of 18 and an intelligence score of 3, for instance), you won't be able to get off quite as easily as that, since Temple of Elemental Evil uses the revised 3.5 Edition rules, which, like 3rd Edition rules, penalize low dexterity, constitution, and wisdom scores when it comes to avoiding the effects of traps, poisons, and dangerous enemy sorcery. The game lets you pick characters from any of the standard 3.5 Edition professions, and since you can have up to five characters to begin with, you have plenty of choices as to how to plan your adventuring party.

Read it all here.

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Neverwinter Nights Beta Patch 1.32 Released
Posted Saturday, September 6, 2003 - 15:11 CET by Veldrin

Bioware has released the beta 1.32 patch for Neverwinter Nights. Here's a list of some of the fixes:

* Made some fixes to prevent game/character/server hacking. Sorry, but we will never publically discuss specific changes to the game with regards to hacking the game.
* Added some safety checks to the CD checking code. Hopefully this will prevent silly messages from Windows asking you to insert your NWN CD into your hard drive. Doing this might void your hard drive's warranty.
* Fixed a nasty frame rate killing bug - if you fired lots of missile weapons with some form of added damage (eg. fire) eventually your frame rate would slow to a crawl.
* Made a fix to wounding.
* Fixed some display issues in the internet multiplayer server list.

You can download the patch here.

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The Temple of Elemental Evil Officialy Gone Gold
Posted Saturday, September 6, 2003 - 1:10 CET by Sorcerer

We have received the official press release on The Temple of Elemental Evil going gold from Atari:

ATARI'S THE TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL EVIL GOES GOLD

Popular Dungeons & Dragons World of Greyhawk to Make First Interactive Appearance on September 23

LOS ANGELES - Sept. 5, 2003 - Atari and Troika Games are pleased to announce that development is complete on The Temple of Elemental Evil for PC CD-ROM. Published by Wizards of the Coast, the World of Greyhawk, remains one of the most popular Dungeons & Dragons(r) campaign settings of all time and will make its first interactive appearance with the September 23rd release of The Temple of Elemental Evil. The Temple of Elemental Evil will feature an exciting party-based single player campaign, an engaging storyline based on the classic D&D(r) adventure of the same name as well as a faithful translation of the latest 3.5 edition rules.

The U.S. launch of the game to retail outlets nationwide will occur on September 23, 2003. For more information about The Temple of Elemental Evil, visit www.greyhawkgame.com./

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Friday, September 5, 2003 - 22:41 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

HotU Scripting: There will be a new function for those things in Hordes, making it easier to switch all kinds of modes (stealth, detect, power attack, expertise, etc...)

Discipline: Discipline was intended to go for paladins in SoU, but we were already in lockdown mode, so it hat to wait until the patch. Monks and Rangers and, if I remember correctly, Harpers will get Discipline in Hordes of the Underdark. Since the game can not guess how you would have distributed your skillpoints, you need either to create a new character if you want to spend a lot of ranks in Discipline, or start taking Discipline with your character when you level up the next time after installing the 1.31 patch. You do not gain any skillpoints retroactive.

NW_FLAG_STEALTH: The SpawnConditions NW_FLAG_STEALTH probably does not work correctly in 1.31 at the moment. I think I fixed a problem in x0_i0_walkway.nss causing it, but it will take a while until that fix goes out in a patch because a new scripting command is involved. I have to check those stealth waypoints, but I suspect they might not work as well. In any case, NW_FLAG_AMBIENT_ANIMATIONS needs to be set for those NW_STEALTH waypoints to be honored (code is in x0_i0_modes), but as said, I doubt it will work correctly.

Object Interaction: When you want two objects to interact with each other (i.e. triggering certain events on another object), you should use SignalEvent(oTarget, EventUserDefined(XXXX)). This makes oTarget's OnUserDefined Event fire, in which you can check using GetUserDefinedEventNumber, which event (XXXXX) has been triggered. This way each object maintains its own functionality and it does not get messy with objects modifying other objects. A noteworthy difference between ExecuteScript and SignalEvent is the actual execution order.

Whirlwind Feat: The whirlwind line accidently slipped into the current talktable. It is a feat upcoming in Hordes of the Underdark.

Item Properties: Nope, you can do permanent modifications to the item properties. If applied as DURATION_TYPE_PERMANENT, the property is added to the item just like in the toolset, forever. DURATION_TYPE_TEMPORARY ones do not carry over between modules, basically like temporary effects.

Custom Legal Item Enforcments: There are scripting command to closly examine an item and its property in Hordes, which could be used to create very powerful filter scripts for localvault servers

Ambient Animations: Actually, I think uncommenting the following line in the SpawnScript does this in a more complete fashion:

SetSpawnInCondition( NW_FLAG_AMBIENT_ANIMATIONS);

Quote: Second, I had read that post, and it didn't answer my question. Which is basically, if you're not using the default level up package with LevelUpHenchman (ie, specifically telling it which class to take), then what package is used? The post (and thread) is very vague on this point.

For the first class it should be the package specified. For the second class, the package specified in the Package column for the class.2da. If that column is missing from your 2da, this means that this functionality is not yet available in your version.

Quote: Does this mean we can remove properties from weapons permanantly as well -- say, as part of a curse?

Sure

Quote: Now maybe I'm jumping the gun here but... Will Mordenkeinen's Disjunction remove item properties?

Our spells and scripts will ever remove permanent item properties, but you can surely script it very easily

Quote: Not too ask for too much here, but is there any chance of seeing some of this functionality in the DM client? Modifying item properties on the fly using the DM client would rule beyond belief...of course, depending on the functions, we could probably script a wand for it. Still, having it as a GUI function would be best. Any plans for this, Georg?

I don't think so, the time required for a new GUI would be quite hefty, definitly nothing for an expansion pack. However you could script some kind of interface for it using conversations, but thats up to you guys. (Put item in container, select property through conversation or even keyword driven, ...)

Quote: Just wondering, with the NW Wednesday contest additions...There is no mention of any specific model to use when it comes to the "Relic of the Reaper". I hate assumptions, so is it free to the module entrant to use their item-of-choice to represent the Relic? Furthermore, do we need to use a specific Tag or ResRef name in conjunction with it?

I think a small or medium misc. item would be ok, through other types of items might work as well. And, yes, it would be replaced at the start of the official campaign anyway.

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

Problems Opening Modules: There are no specific limits as to the number areas a module may contain. There are many modules that are much larger than 3 MB, so it isn't just a size issue, either. To verify that the module is still intact, try opening it using the ERF editor (available from the For Developers section, here) and transfer the contents to a new .mod file. If the new .mod doesn't work, try opening the module.ifo file contained in the .mod using the GFF editor (also available here). If you can open it, use the module.ifo documentation (also available here) to see if you can spot any problems with your file.

SoU Modules: Things like prestige classes and such should work by virtue of running the module on an SoU server. If you have specific plot points that depend upon the classes of the player characters, you'll have to update your module accordingly however.

Invalid Pointer Operation: Go to the folder where you installed NWN and run nwupdate.exe. This is the program that is run when you press the Update button in the launcher. Running the program directly will avoid the "invalid pointer operation" problem.

Rob Bartel, Co Lead Designer

Quote: Anyway, this is just a long-winded way to ask: Rob, if worse came to worst and you are not able to continue the series for some reason, do you think you could write up a short synopsis on where you were going with it? I really want to know what the heck is going on.

Should it come to that, I'll do my best to jot down some notes and pass them on. At this point, however, there's still reason to hope for an official sequel (this is not new news so please don't interpret it as such).

David Gaider, Designer

Alternative Lifestyle NPCs: Alright, enough. This conversation can be continued in the Off Topic forum if it really has anywhere else to go. It certainly has little to do with HotU, if it ever did.And, for the record, we not only can have homosexual NPC's, but we have. We're just not very blatant about it, and we really don't think that a Teen-rated game is the place to be blatant about that sort of thing. If we were going to include such a theme in a Teen-rated game, I think we'd make the story relate more to one of tolerance for your fellow man... something a few posters in this thread could certainly practice a bit more of. So I hereby exert my superpower of The Final Word and shut this one down.

NWN: Let's not forget a couple of things which may have been mentioned here but probably need to be emphasized. NWN may use the Forgotten Realms license as its setting, but first and foremost its mandate back at creation time was to implement the 3rd edition ruleset. The races are put in NWN as they exist in the Player's Handbook, NOT as per the 3rd edition Forgotten Realms handbook (which didn't even exist when we did the game), and this is the way that WotC wanted it. We still implement many FR-specific things, as we can, but when there's a contradiction (taller FR elves vs. the smaller Player's Handbook elves) we have to evaluate whether it's something that's worth changing just for that. So far, sub-races have been a big No on that front. As for not planning better for Prestige Classes and other things that would come up in our Expansion Packs... ummm... sorry? I'll admit there's some things we could have left more open programming-wise (like, say, spellcasting) with the idea that they might need to be changed in the future. Things went that way, however, simply because there was little choice. NWN was a huge project that we had to make work as it was back on release, never mind giving any kind of priority to what may come. Add to that the fact that Prestige Classes did not exist... how can you blame us for not preparing for them? The 2nd edition kits only modified the base class... nobody told us that we'd need to add an infinite number of new classes (which is, effectively, what Prestige Classes are) into NWN. Indeed, that's something that WotC specifically did not want us to enable (no non-D&D custom classes by the community).

And as far as listening to the community goes... really, that depends on your definition of "listening". If "listening" is getting input and feedback and sometimes changing our minds based on this or implementing what we can when possible, then great. If "listening" is dropping everything to implement every idea that comes up on the message board that seems like it has a bit of vocal support or is a bit neat, then not so great. I think we do plenty of the former, and if you want to fault us for not doing the latter then, sorry, but I'd have to say too damn bad. Find fault in us for many things we try to do, if you wish, but some of the things you've selected here to take fault with I really disagree with.

Deekin: Well, we can't change a model's size dynamically within the game. So IF Deekin is a Dragon Disciple the only way his size could increase is if we made larger models especially for him. Which we haven't.

Mithral: There are numerous things in D&D which are part of the generic fantasy "mythology", like elves and dwarves, that you can find in some variation in any use of the genre. Mithril is one of those things. In D&D, it is spelled mithral. Heck, they could have made it mythrille if they really wanted to... but the D&D version is still its own even if it was used first in Tolkien. Fair enough?

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Temple Of Elemental Evil Developer Interview at Worthplaying
Posted Friday, September 5, 2003 - 22:14 CET by Veldrin

Worthplaying has posted an interview with Tim Cain about the up and coming Temple of Elemental Evil. Here's a clip:

First off, how has the development process been converting the old module to a new updated game engine?

TC: Everything went smoothly until we had the whole module reproduced as actual populated maps. That’s when we discovered (not surprisingly) that in converting from 1st to 3rd edition, there were several imbalances. Some monsters were much tougher in 3rd edition, but mostly we found that 3rd edition player characters are tougher hombres than their 1st edition equivalents. We had to add, move or change some monsters to make the game flow better.

Read it all here.

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The Temple of Elemental Evil Goes Gold
Posted Friday, September 5, 2003 - 21:15 CET by Sorcerer

According to GameSpy, The Temple of Elemental Evil has just gone gold. Developed by Troika Games, The Temple of Elemental Evil is the first RPG to utilize the D&D 3.5-edition rules. The game is based on the pen-and-paper module of the same name based in Gary Gygax's world of Greyhawk.

The game should hit the shelves in USA on September 23, and you can pre-order it here.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Thursday, September 4, 2003 - 21:24 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Quote: Think it will possible to add properties to items through scripting?

yepp

Quote: Look at the big picture though, doesn't this mean that items can now be altered dynamically? Which, in theory would allow for item creations of anything the player wanted (this was previously implauable because it would be necessarry to create every possible combination in advance). But if we can alter items dynamically, it should in theory be possible to take a longsword and use item creation to apply permanent effects to it, creating your own longsword +1 of vorpal wounding or whatever. The possibilities are endless.

Indeed... permanent and temporary

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Last Week's Poll's Results
Posted Thursday, September 4, 2003 - 20:00 CET by Sorcerer

What we asked:

Q: Did you take any levels in any of the new prestige classes in Shadows of Undrentide?
(182 votes total)

Yes (98) 54%
No (46) 25%
Not yet, but I intend to (38) 21%

The majority of poll participants (54%) voted that they did take one or more levels in any of the new prestige classes introduced to NWN with Shadows of Undrentide.

A quarter of those who voted (25%) did not take any at all, however.

Finally, 21% of participating visitors did not take any levels in prestige classes yet, but they intend to do so in the future.

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Temple of Elemental Evil Preview at UGO
Posted Wednesday, September 3, 2003 - 22:04 CET by Veldrin

UGO has posted a preview of Troika's Temple of Elemental Evil. Here's a clip:

ToEE begins with a quest, which is pretty standard for an RPG, but it's a hell of a lot better than getting plopped down in the middle of a city, not knowing where to go or what to do. No, this quest is pretty easy. You're to enter a city and find this guy called Black Jay, who knows the whereabouts of these two missing soldiers. Even that's something I can figure out! While walking through town, I was able to stop and chat with the local folk, getting directions, finding out about the goings on, and so on and so forth. Interaction with other characters is a breeze, as right clicking yields a blooming radial display. From this display, you'll be able to choose options such as converse, or, for the less socially conscious, combat. There are numerous other options, including magic, skills, inventory and so forth, but as a beginning, just knowing how to fight and talk was enough. With a little luck, I was able to find the man named Black Jay, and a conversation ensued. This conversation yielded directions to my next location, a moathouse filled with baddies, where I was to continue my quest.

You can read it all here.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Wednesday, September 3, 2003 - 21:54 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Patch 1.32: We have a build in internal testing. If it all goes good, you should get it sometime Wednesday.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

HotU Campaign: There are no spells cast on certain triggers in the default AI, through there may be some scripted situations in the campaign. Keep in mind that HotU is a high level module, enemies are more likely to have a defense against hide and run than in low level modules.

Quote: I'm perfectly fine with enemies casting True Sight and following up with their nastiest spells after they've detected my presence. I just don't want to be detected by a trigger on the map instead of a Spot or Listen check that I at least have a shot at defeating. The Gamespot article made it sound like the enemies basically buff-up when I begin to approach, before they even see me, which is what got me worried.

No, that is not the case. Monster combat AI is still triggered through perception (which can be either by spotting or hearing you). There might be scripted situation in the offical hordes campaign where monsters behave different, but if so, these situations are there for a reason.

Quote: Out of interest, will this AI revamp be applied universally, or just to the new creatures? Will liches finally put up a fight that befits their status? Cheers.

Thats not entirely correct for hordes. Some creatures, like beholders, run their own AI scripts, optimizing the use of their special abilities.

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Neverwinter Wednesday
Posted Wednesday, September 3, 2003 - 20:47 CET by Sorcerer

Another week's around and here are the latest NWN Wednesday goodies:

Mithril Golem
The Hordes of the Underdark creature featured this week is the Mithril Golem, a construct of such power that iron golems will regularly gather around it at parties and act all giddy. A new Hordes spell has also been released to fansites - participating sites listed here! Discuss.

Module Contest Update
Several weeks ago Maximus from NWVault announced a new contest to create a module that bridges the Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark expansions. This week we have some new details regarding the requirements and parameters of the module so that it smoothly transitions to the beginning of Hordes. Everyone is invited to participate - so check out the details and start your module today! Discuss.

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Hordes of the Underdark - New Spell
Posted Wednesday, September 3, 2003 - 20:37 CET by Sorcerer

BioWare revealed a new spell which you will be able to see in the second Neverwinter Nights expansion, Hordes of the Underdark:

Keen Edge

Caster Level(s): Wizard / Sorcerer 3, Bard 3
Innate Level: 3
School: Transmutation
Descriptor(s): Weapon Enchantment
Component(s): Verbal, Somatic
Range: Short
Area of Effect / Target: Creature's main or off-hand weapon
Duration: 10 Minutes / Level
Additional Counter Spells:
Save: None
Spell Resistance: No

The critical threat range of one weapon is extended.

Adds the keen property to one melee weapon, extending its critical threat range.

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SP Happenings #13
Posted Tuesday, September 2, 2003 - 19:30 CET by Sorcerer

The SP merchandise is finally complete, and samples have been ordered so we can verify the quality of the print. If all goes according to plan (i.e. the prints are ok), the shop will go live in a couple of weeks.

Falstaff, our newest content contributor, has been busy writing reviews of various fantasy movies (Harry Potter 1 & 2, The Two Towers...) so our fantasy movies section will see some new life with the next site update (which, incidentally, should go up by the end of the week).

Blackthorne TA (my co-admin on the boards) is on vacation this week (water-skiing), so if you miss him, you can be sure he's having more fun than you are. ;)

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Shadows of Undrentide Review at Quandaryland
Posted Tuesday, September 2, 2003 - 18:06 CET by Veldrin

Quandaryland has posted a review of Shadows of Undrentide and didn't give it a final score, so here is their conclusion:

All in all this was quite an agreeable journey. The graphics are good and very detailed, much the same as in NWN, but I was fascinated watching the shadows shift and re-shape this time around, perhaps because the gameworld isn’t always as murky so they catch your attention more often. It’s good, too, closing in and watching your character dodge a blow or weave a spell, and watching your footprints in the sand trail behind you and then disappear. This gave me the impression that the sand was so fine it couldn’t ‘hold’ imprints for more than the time it took to walk a few steps. Along with the great music, which is at least partly recycled from NWN, these little touches really contribute to the game.

Read it all here.

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Neverwinter Nights Forum News
Posted Tuesday, September 2, 2003 - 17:56 CET by Veldrin

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Polymorph: That is correct. You actually get the creature weapons of a death slaad equipped when you polymorph, but creature weapons do not show up on the character sheet (will hopefully be fixed with HotU). Polymorphing does not grant you any access to special abilities, except for those tied to the creature weapons (OnHit) and passive abilties coded into the creature armor

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

Windowed Mode: In nwn.ini, find the [Display Options] section and add or change the following keys to these values (as appropriate):

FullScreen=0
AllowWindowedMode=1

David Gaider, Designer

CD Covers: We don't decide whether jewel cases or paper slips get used. That's up to Infogrames. Obviously we'd really, really like them to use jewel cases... but they didn't use them for SoU and I have my doubts about HotU as a result. I guess we'll see.

Quote: Will it be possible to increase the spell failure % as well as reduce it?

Yes, I believe so. From what I saw of the property, it had both a positive and negative range affecting the ASF.

Quote: How about modifiers for Armor Check Penalty and Max. Dex Bonus to AC?

No, nothing like that is planned.

Quote: Georg or David, is there any (even the slightest) chance that we will get the "Subdual" property from iprp_damagetype.2da as well?

No. Subdual damage must be tracked seperately, and it causes something different to happen when the player hits 0 and it heals differently... an entirely different system. I suppose it could be done, given enough time, but we've no plans to implement it currently.

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Shadows of Undrentide Review at Stratos Group
Posted Monday, September 1, 2003 - 17:23 CET by Veldrin

Stratos Group has posted a Shadows of Undrentide review and gave the game a final score of 4.2/5. Here's what they had to say:

But there's a lot more to the expansion than just a campaign. Making their first appearance in NWN are a small selection of prestige classes. Prestige classes are specialized, exotic classes that you can't take right from the start due to some rather specific skill, class, race and statistic requirements. Instead, you have to work towards gaining these classes by choosing a specific class to begin with and picking certain skills to advance when you level up. The classes tend to be worth it though, since they open up a lot of powerful special abilities that you wouldn't have access to with a normal class.

Read it all here.

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