"Jefferson" Project Forum News

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(Originally posted by Z-Layrex)

Here are a few developer posts I found on the Interplay forums for the next big D&D project for BIS, Jefferson:

J.E Sawyer, Lead Designer

"Jefferson actually has a bunch of little reputation markers: Regional Reputation, Factional Reputation, Fame/Infamy, and Epithets. The first three all have positive AND negative scales.

For example, let's use the the NE section of the Inner Sea (in FR):

Regional Reputations:
* Sembia Positive
* Sembia Negative

* Dalelands Positive
* Dalelands Negative

* Moonsea Positive
* Moonsea Negative

* Cormyr Positive
* Cormyr Negative

Factional Reputations:
* Harpers Positive
* Harpers Negative

* Zhentarim Positive
* Zhentarim Negative

* Silver Ravens Positive
* Silver Ravens Negative

* War Wizards Positive
* War Wizards Negative

Fame and Infamy can be checked ANYWHERE; they are rewards for large scale actions that would reasonably known throughout the whole game area. For example, if you single-handedly stopped a Super Mutant invasion of Vault City, that would likely result in Fame, since everyone in the game area would eventually know about something so important. If you single-handedly wiped out Vault City, you would get Infamy.

Some characters may only care about your positive reputation in an area, others might only care about your negative reputation in an organization, and others might try to balance a number of reputations when they speak to you. These organizational ones could be broken down even further. For example, the Red Wizards of Thay in FR are currently divided about the existence of Enclaves (no relation to the post-apocalyptic U.S. gov't) and the "conquest through trade" method. If your character did something to reinforce the existence of the Enclaves against the wishes of the "old skool" Red Wizards who blow everyone up, you could increase your Red Wizard Progressive Positive reputation and increase your Red Wizard Traditionalist Negative reputation.

On top of these, you have epithets, which may override the general tendencies throughout an area. A character who has a good reputation, but is known throughout the lands as a "Cruel Master" would be poorly received by priests of Ilmater, regardless of other factors. There are a bunch of epithets that we're currently tracking. We may add more, but I'd like to keep it to less than two dozen for bookkeeping and other practical purposes. Let's see... Porcelain Mask, Wind of Death, Cruel Master/Mistress, Blessed Charity, Helter Skelter (for hurting/killing allies with careless attacks), Golden Hand (known to kill for money), Gentleman/Gentlewoman of Distinction (extremely polite even when horribly insulted), Forge of Rage (flips out attacks at the slightest insult), Antagonistic Barb (provokes people into violence), Rapier of Wit (cuts people down with scalding retorts), etc. There are a bunch."

More:

"Comparing Jefferson's graphics to MW [Morrowind] isn't really appropriate, since one is a first-person game and the other is a third-person isometric game. It's also not entirely fair to compare Jefferson's graphics to NWNs. NWN [Neverwinter Nights] uses an entirely dynamic lighting model. This creates uniformly good lighting, but a lot of the subtlety is lost. It was also a requirement for their engine, since it's also a very flexible toolset. The Jefferson engine uses a static lighting solution for environments because we're not building it to be an enduser toolset like NWN. We just want the levels and characters wemake to look dope, fly, and phat. And they do, IMO."

Sean K. Reynolds, Designer

"I've told Josh that I think once the game is really announced, we ought to post a bunch of pictures of character illos we built with the engine. I can see PNP gamers using the engine to make illos of their characters and attaching them to the character sheet."

 

(Originally posted by Spellbound)

2 new games on their way!! What great news!! The Jefferson Project sounds terrific....thanks for posting these little tidbits!

 

(Originally posted by Vince Clortho)

Affirmative: it -is- good news to hear that BIS has D&D stuff in the works. If the results are up to the standards set by the BG & IWD games, they can walk up and down every region of Toril and I, for one, will buy their games.