Neverwinter Nights 2 Patch 1.03: New Features

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Darren Monahan, the producer in charge of Neverwinter Nights 2 until yesterday (moving on to other projects now), has opened a long thread about the upcoming 1.03 patch on the BioWare forums. Due to the size of his posts, we've split the news in two parts. Here's the first part, listing the new features coming to NWN2:

New Features

General
• Weapon combos in hotbar: Added the ability to set up dual weapon, weapon & shield, or weapon & torch combos in the hotbar. Clicking the hotbar button for a weapon you already have equipped will unequip it.

• Camera Changes: We’ve made a series of camera changes to this version:
o New options for adjusting sensitivity for controlling the camera by keyboard, mouse, and edge of screen.
o Chase Cam adjusted to work more like NWN1.
o In free cam mode, the arrow keys now pan the camera, and holding down CTRL will zoom and yaw the camera.
o Added bindable keyboard key for mouse look / camera control. This mimics functionality of pressing down the middle mouse button for those without a middle mouse button.

• Graphics Optimizations: A number of new graphics optimizations have been added:
o Anti-Aliasing Support: Anti-aliasing is now supported and can be enabled in the Options Menu. Please note: This could significantly affect frame rate, depending on your hardware.
o Shadow Rendering: Shadow rendering speed has been improved.
o Tree Rendering: Speed improvements to the rendering of trees.
o Water Rendering: Speed improvements to how water is rendered by the engine.

• New Options:
o Buy/Sell Confirmation: You can now turn off the buy/sell confirmation dialog.
o Options menu has been reorganized to support many new camera control options.
o You can now change keybindings in game.

• Database Support:
o The database script functions from NWN1 have been re-enabled. They are now significantly faster in many cases.

Multiplayer
• Improved /t style chat.

DM Client
• Added initial support for hotbar buttons and context menus.
• Added in party bar. It will only list the connected players in the game and not who is in your faction.
• You can now hover over menu items in the Chooser instead of having to click on them first.
• “Very Easy” difficulty option has been restored.
• The DM chat channel is once again available via the /dm prefix.

Scripting
• EffectWildshape() – New function for Wildshape effect.
• GetEncumbranceState () - Added script function to get the encumbrance state of a given player
• GetPlayerCreatureExamineTarget() - Added script function to get the current creature examine target for a player
• PackCampaignDatabase() – A new database feature to NWN2, this will pack the campaign database and purge deleted records from a database.
• GetPlayerTargetObject() – New script function to get the current selected target object for a given player.
• UnlinkDoor() – New script command to turn an area transition door into a normal door.
• Database support has been added, including new PackCampaignDatabase() function.

Toolset
• Added a load screen image previewer.
• Added item icon previewer.
• Area names and tags now default to the area’s file name for new areas.
• The spell tab now shows multiple instances of spells, so creatures can have multiple instances of a spell with different metamagic types.
• Right-clicking while placing tiles now rotates the tile.
• The first column and row of the 2DA viewer are now pinned, making it easier to use.
• Changes on item blueprints will now be propagated to items in creature or placeable inventories, or that are equipped on creatures.
• Added new option to the File menu that allows the user to compile only currently open scripts.
• There is a new panel in the script editor that allows the user to insert scripts from the NWN2Toolset\Templates folder into the current script.
• Script search functionality changed to bring up all results in one result window and the user can double-click to open up that search result.
• Item cost calculations added to the item properties.
• New visual style.
• Doors now have a flag that allows them to render an invisible area transition (aka an invisible "black door.") This is adjustable in the toolset. This is to address concerns with the “black area” behind open doors and how silly it looked on open gates in the middle of Neverwinter, etc.
• When users enter a string ref, they can also check a box to say that the string ref is from the custom file and the string returned will be from that file instead of the main .tlk table.
• Feminine versions of strings are now editable.
• Hex values can now be used as string references within 2DAs. This makes it easier to use custom TLK files with 2DAs.
• The script editor runs faster and uses less memory.

You can see the whole thread here.

 

Can someone explain the problem with the camera? I keep hearing about "problems" but really don't understand it. I'm having no trouble with the default top-down view, so I'm wondering if I'm just playing differently than others... especially with comments like "fighting is almost impossible with the current one"

 

I haven't had a problem with walls etc. because there's always an angle or zoom level that lets me see what I want. The roof disappears if its in the way. I haven't however fought any dragons yet, and the biggest thing I've fought so far I think was that devil or whatever in the Githyanki stronghold.

I would imagine for giant monsters I could just zoom out far enough that they didn't take up so much screen room, but perhaps I am wrong there.