Neverwinter Nights 2 Forum News (Sep. 30, 04)

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Here are today's Neverwinter Nights 2 forum highlights, collected by NWVault from Obsidian Forums. 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.

Ferret, Developer

Henchmen Interaction
The people that follow the player in NWN2 are going to be full-fledged companions (not henchmen for hire). And yup, they're going to interact with each other, you, and many situations. It won't be non-stop chatter, but enough so that you get a sense of who they are.

More : Henchman to me implies a certain amount of subservience. To me the characters in BG2 (and games like it) are the pen-and-paper terms equivalent of the other players in a gaming group. The D&D term henchman was used to refer to NPCs that followed a particular PC around. Which is not the type of vibe we're going for. I think "companion" is a far more apt term to describe what we're shooting for in NWN2. The game's companions make up the rest of your gaming group. Each companion has their own backstory, personality, and rationale for adventuring. You're the leader and make the calls, though, but that happens in sit-down games, as well. I know it's a fairly semantic point, but we're going to be handling the people that travel with you significantly differently than the original NWN1. So using a new term for them seems apropos.

Packaging
As people seem to know, Obsidian doesn't make the call on packaging. Just a personal opinion here, for whatever it's worth, I liked the NWN1 storage foldout they had in the Gold Edition. That made it so that NWN1, SoU, and HotU were all in one place together. Very convenient especially considering how cluttered my home computer room gets.

Seasons
Our schedule is chock full of cool stuff. Adding something like seasons (which I love in theory) would have to come at the sacrifice of something else - like Ferret's Mysterious Tileset of Doom ™. There are some things worth sacrificing a tileset or some creatures models for, but I don't think seasons are quite in that ballpark. Perhaps some other game, but right now stealing Frank's magic 8-ball, "Not Likely".

Jason Keeney, Programmer

Sloping Hills and Sheer cliffs
Tilesets and heightmaps are not mutually exclusive.

Ferret, Developer

Single Weapon Styles
I've seen single weapon styles work in some systems, but in 3.5 it isn't an optimal path unless you pick up a cool prestige class (or allow in feats from other sources). But with sword and shield, florentine, and two-handers there are already enough cool fighting flavors to make it a tough call which to take.

Erik Novales, Programmer

Cutscene Features

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If you managed to put in a first-person camera during cutscenes that zooms in on your henchman's or NPC's face when they talk to you, like SW:KoTor, the single player would automatically be more compelling. However, this would require higher poly models for faces than the last game, and lip-synching software. But I think the pay-off would be worht it, combined with typically top-notch Bioware/Black Isle syle voice acting.

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You know, I think that's a good idea, too.

Feargus Urquhart, CEO

Demon Stone: A glimpse of NWN2?
I haven't played Demonstone yet either, but a number of the guys at work have and they don't think it is a piece of "shat". It's not a hardcore PC RPG, but it's not intended to be. As for graphics, I think the Aurora 2 engine will impress you guys once we start showing screens.

Dev Replies
Well a number of things came up in this thread. The guys addressed some, I'll address some as well:

1) Someone said that we are making NWN2 more like Diablo 2. I don't like to be flippant but - Huh? We have no intention of making NWN2 a Diablo 2 style game - we actually have less experience with making games like that as compared to harder-core PC RPGs.

2) Single Mesh models are "bad". Brian talked about this before, but in general single mesh models are better if used well. You don't have to have your limbs penetrate each other to have a joint. Also, saying single mesh doesn't mean they won't have geometry that they wear. In other words, you have the base character and then you put stuff on them that is geometry, so they are actually wearing something. We are putting a lot of work into Aurora 2 and that means changing some things quite a bit with the goal to bring the technology up to 2006 standards.

3) NWN2 as a Morrowind Game. This is not something we plan to do. We want NWN2 to be a successor of NWN1 and changing how the game is played to such a large degree wouldn't do that.

4) Screenshots. We'll hopefully have some pretty soon - but I don't have a date yet.

Graphics
I am pretty sure that with Aurora 2 you won't be getting the boxy feeling anymore. We've built an entirely new graphics and animation engine to maximize the amount of the CPU that can be dedicated to the rest of the running of the world.

Brian Lawson, Graphics Programming

Shadows from above

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People tell me I am an optimist. Can flying creatures please have shadows that get cast on the ground from above? That way a dragon passing overhead would be a simply terrific experience... especially if the shadow turns as you swivel your camera up.

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Magic 8 ball says "There's a possibility." Although, what's the word regarding flying objects??

More :

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Umm you tell us you the dev. Go harass some coworker to get us the info then read all my posts laugh at my jokes say a prayer for me then get back to work.

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LOL Seriously...if you could only see how busy a day in the life of Dev X on the NWN2 team can be, you wouldn't be surprised at my questioning as to whether or not flying objects are "in" or "out" Although I know it relates to the whole "z-axis" thingy. LOL We're not all invloved in some of the more "design" oriented discussions related to the actual game play. I personally implement technology (graphics to be exact) and will be the first to admit that I'm not as up to date on the status of flying creatures in the game. But, whether it be air land or sea, I'll do my best to have it cast shadows. (no guarentees though).

Erik Novales, Programmer

Game AI
I believe the Army is sponsoring an annual contest where entrants try to create a vehicle that can drive itself across desert terrain for x number of miles successfully, with no human intervention. I seem to remember reading that nobody has yet claimed the prize (as of this year). I guess what I'm trying to say is that creating an intelligent dungeon-exploring AI that can work in arbitrarily-designed dungeons/modules, explores areas, understands its feats/spells, understands tactical situations and other players/monsters, communicates with players, and argues with a DM, is probably a bit much to expect.

 

Weapon styles... I guess some fatigue factor would be much in order. Swinging a two-hander isn't really the same as toying with two daggers. And it's not like you won't notice the weight of a shield if you go sword & shield route.