Neverwinter Nights 2 Forum News

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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.

FrankK, Programmer

Will Macintosh and Linux be supported?

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Please do preserve the linux dedicated server functionality. I've been hosting an NWN server now for >2 years that's had 55/55 players most of that time -- and I couldn't have done it without a linux dedicated server. If you look at "game servers on the net", the majority are linux based. There's a reason (or, several reasons).

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It is very likely we will continue to support the Linux Dedicated Server.

At the time we decided on DX9, we felt it was the better decision (OGL 2.0 was months away from official release and older OGL versions were quirky when trying to port functionality across different cards). We also have other reasons for DX9 you could probably deduce from not too much speculation. I would love to have the resources for an OGL version, but that decision is not likely to come for several months. Until that time, we will continue to support a render interface wrapper layer that can branch to either API. It would be a matter of an OGL programmer filling in the API specific stuff. I suspect an OGL port could be done in a couple of months if/when that decision is made.

Cut-scene view
We plan on making them somewhat easier to create. I know our designers would appreciate it.

Drow - Playable race.

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Clothes might protect them from the sun, but not their eyes and welfare. Think there should be a hitroll penalty in daytime and perhaps a bonus in the dark and perhaps a general skill bonus/penalty as well.?

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Don't forget the ECL. They earn xp at a reduced rate. Sub Races are on the discussion board (we're still in pre-production design and art-wise) for implementation feasibility. So the magic 8-ball says: maybe.

Custom Loot Tables

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IMO a much more robust, dynamic feature for DMs/module builders.

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We are switching to a much more dynamic loot generation system. Not quite Diablo 2, but probably more along the lines of what's in the back of the DMG. This is a VERY interesting idea though and may be worth taking a look at down the road. You can probably mimic something like this in script right now, especially if you are clever with defines and area-specific includes. It wouldn't be as simple, but you could do it.

Brian Lawson, Graphics Programming

Graphics

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The rendering API is really not that big a deal anymore. You can abstract Open GL and Direct3D easily enough. It does obviously add some work but this is a straight forward porting exercise.

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Not so fast. While that is true to SOME degree when considering this whole OGL/DX issue back BEFORE the concept of vertex and pixel shaders were introduced. With them in the game, it makes it a whole different ball of wax. Not to mention, until what...yesterday?? (before the OGL 2.0 spec was officially announced), there was no real concept of a standard in OGL in terms of what MUST be supported in order to achieve a desired minimum level of functionality/capabilites from the video card. The only way to do it was via querying the hardware vendor's supported extensions. dry.gif Then, as somebody else already mentioned in another thread, you're left essentially coding again two separate branches of execution (one to support NVidia and one to support ATI).

More:

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I presume this means the rendering engine is being rewritten, so we can expect much nicer graphics than NWN1's?

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Yes.

[ August 15, 2004, 01:57: Message edited by: chevalier ]