1. SPS Accounts:
    Do you find yourself coming back time after time? Do you appreciate the ongoing hard work to keep this community focused and successful in its mission? Please consider supporting us by upgrading to an SPS Account. Besides the warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from supporting a good cause, you'll also get a significant number of ever-expanding perks and benefits on the site and the forums. Click here to find out more.
    Dismiss Notice
Dismiss Notice
You are currently viewing Boards o' Magick as a guest, but you can register an account here. Registration is fast, easy and free. Once registered you will have access to search the forums, create and respond to threads, PM other members, upload screenshots and access many other features unavailable to guests.

BoM cultivates a friendly and welcoming atmosphere. We have been aiming for quality over quantity with our forums from their inception, and believe that this distinction is truly tangible and valued by our members. We'd love to have you join us today!

(If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you've forgotten your username or password, click here.)

Neverwinter Nights Forum News (Nov. 12, 04)

Discussion in 'Game/SP News & Comments' started by chevalier, Nov 13, 2004.

  1. chevalier

    chevalier Knight of Everfull Chalice ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran

    Joined:
    Dec 14, 2002
    Messages:
    16,815
    Media:
    11
    Likes Received:
    58
    Gender:
    Male
    Remove all ads!
    Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights, collected by NWVault. 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, Live Team Producer

    Mac / Linux?
    It would seem to me that since these were totally new modules anyway, perhaps delaying them until the 1.65 patch was out would have made some sense.
    Unfortunately, the issue didn't present itself until a week after the 1.64 Update was released. Not much we could do about it other than to work on a fix and get 1.65 into your hands as soon as we can. And as another update, another round of testing completed successfully. If it all goes well tomorrow, we will start the 1.65 Beta building cycle on Monday.

    More:
    Besides allowing Linux and Macs use the Premies, what other major fixes will their be in 1.65, if any?
    The primary issue will be to resolve the Mac functionality, but it is important to understand that other fixes will always make their way in, as they would have been worked on starting the day after the 1.64 .exe was built (9/21/2004) so I can imagine that there are a number of other things in there.

    Quote: Also, would the patching process have the ability to fix any issues in the Premies or would they need to be redownloaded and reinstalled to get any future fixes, if any?
    NWN Updates and any potential updates to Premium Neverwinter Nights Modules are completly separate.

    Solution? - Live Connection Doesn't Work for Me
    If the store is a success, and if new offline methods of authentication are created, will this be backwards compatible? In other words, will the current modules be available to play offline, if this goes ahead?
    Heh, you want me to theorize about a system that hasn't even been thought of yet? :) Sure, lemme try...Whatever goes forward for Premium Neverwinter Nights Modules and authentication, we will make sure that past and future systems all work.

    On-line requirement will hurt Bioware
    Okay, I have a question. How does the Live Internet Check work? I got a bunch of yes or no questions for the SP-based Premium Mods. Does it do the Live Internet Copyright Protection Check...
    Since the term "Copyright" means something specific, it is not appropriate here. This is simply "online authentication" usuing almost the exact same system as the 2 year old Neverwinter Nights CD Keys for multiplayer system.

    Quote: 1...when you begin a new game entirely?
    Yes.

    Quote: 2...when you load a saved game?
    Yes.

    Quote: 3...when you quickload a game?
    Yes (as this is loading a save game called "quick").

    Quote: 4...when you click to respawn?
    No.

    Quote: 5...when you save a game?
    No.

    Quote: 6...when you quicksave a game?
    No.

    Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager

    Alternate form of distribution
    Orik has it correct. Currently we have no resources in place to burn and send CD's out so we can't offer that method of delivery right now. Craig mentioned in the store interview that we want to start selling physical goods in the future so that might lead to modules on CD but I am not aware of any plans right now to implement that. Click Here

    Kingmaker = Sleep Deprivation!
    Great to hear you had a good time. It's always nice to hear feedback!

    Rob Bartel, Senior Designer Live Team

    Subraces won't work in Witch's Wake
    Do I highlight Dwarf, then press subrace and enter "Cairn"? Or "Dwarf: Cairn" with one space? Two spaces? Do I leave the selection on "Human" when I choose subrace?
    The system's pretty good at handling different entry methods. After selecting 'Dwarf' and clicking the Subrace button, you can enter "Cairn", "Dwarf: Cairn", or "Cairn Dwarf". It's not case-sensitive so it will read "cairn" and "cAirN" just fine.

    Quote: I have tried every combination I can think of, but don't see the ability modifiers when I am choosing to increase or decrease abilities. Do I see those after the module starts?
    Yes, the subrace properties can only be applied once you're in the actual module and therefore aren't visible during the character creation process.

    Quote: I made sure that Enforce Legal Characters and Item Level Restrictions were both set to 0 in the nwnplayer.ini file. What I am doing incorrectly?
    Just jump in game and everything should work just fine. Because the subraces are module-specific, they can't be displayed directly as part of the in-menu character creation process. Enjoy your Cairn Dwarf

    IP Address Logging
    So everytime you go to your friend's you'll have to replace the CD key found in the nwncdkey.ini file with your own, and then put his back when you're done.
    A correction to that - during the purchase process, you're asked to enter the CDkey you want to authorize the module for. In some instances, it will auto-fill that line with the CDkey associated with the community account being used to make the purchase. As you can login on your friend's computer with your own community account, however, that shouldn't be a problem (just make sure you logout again when you're done). If you are manually entering your CDkey, a help page will tell you where to find the proper *.ini file on your computer but you can always write down your own CD-key at home and bring that along instead. In short, you would have to swap out the nwncdkey.ini file if you want to play on your friend's computer but you don't need to do that if all you're doing is purchasing or downloading the modules. Is that clear?

    My personal experience (includes testing)
    Yes, the primary cause of the difference is the substantial amount of VO included in the Remastered version of Witch's Wake (200+ lines, if I remember correctly) and the decryption process in general. The authentication process itself is pretty negligible, even for those on dialup.

    We're looking for ways to improve load times in the future but encryption and decryption are inherently processor-intensive processes. We did have a version that had slightly better load times but it also resulted in a substantially larger installer size, making the download process more painful. We'll continue to assess the situation to see if there are improvements we can make for future premium modules.

    any hope for a premium epic module?
    Absolutely. We see the need, we really want to do it, and we have some preliminary plans in place to satisfy epic-level players. At this time, however, we do not have any epic-level modules specifically in development. Provided sales go well, we'll be able to ramp up our live team staff and external contacts and bring some of these modules into development.

    Quick question about file sharing
    Assuming the module has a demo section, that is.
    Yes. In this case, it's just a brief movie informing people that they need to purchase the module before they can play it. For future Premium Modules, we hope to actually offer up a small taste of the initial gameplay.

    Sales???
    Not absent, just thin in numbers. :) And no, we're not allowed to post sales figures to the public. Even internally at BioWare (or at Atari, our publisher), those figures are only given out on a need-to-know basis (this is relatively standard procedure). We'll see how the numbers stack up over time but, at this early point, we're happy and proud of what we've been able to achieve (not just in terms of numbers). Our brains haven't melted or anything, though. There's an internal pool going on how many sales we'll get in a week's time and our guesses were all over the map. As it currently stands, we're on track for somewhere in the middle of all of those guesses. That's about as much as we can really say,

    Multiplayer - CAN they be played so?
    If you give it a shot with ShadowGuard or Kingmaker, let us know how it goes and share any workarounds you find. As Orik says, they're not designed or tested with multiplayer in mind, but, with a little care and elbow grease, it may be feasible.

    Prison; Kingmaker *possible spoiler*
    ****** SPOILER******** Once you've completed the election, all of the Guild Vote quests shut down. While not an ideal situation, the effort required to write, script, and test alternative resolutions to every plot was simply prohibitive. We printed out all of the conversations Dan wrote for the module at one point for Wizards of the Coast approvals and it was literally the length of a very thick novel!

    So no, this is not a bug. Continue on in pursuit of the Masked Man and you'll soon be at the climactic end battle.

    Visceral Review of Shadowguard *NO SPOILERS*
    Thanks for the review, Visceris. Looking forward to hearing your reviews of the other two modules as well.

    Neverwinter Nights: Witch's Wake
    I thought it was a bit odd that it was "raining" during the first cutscene, but you have snow everywhere.
    My intention was to create a sense of sleet during the battle, with softly falling snow appearing when you awake.

    Quote: Did anyone else run into a little bug where the prince is invisible? Broke my immersion when I realized that it wasn't showing up on the pike.
    You must have the German version of the game or low-gore settings enabled. Germany is very strict with regards to the realistic depiction of violence in computer games and a wide variety of titles undergo art changes during the localization process in order to retain access to that market. In the German version of NWN, I believe certain bloodspray VFX are either turned green or disabled entirely while some of the more gory placeables (such as the man on the pike) have had their appearance edited. Anything with the child appearance type also gets flagged as invulnerable, it I remember correctly. In other words, it's not something we can readily address and, once you get past the initial scene with Prince Ahmed, it becomes less of an issue. Just thought I'd clear the matter up,

    Robin Mayne, Webmaster

    Mac / Linux?
    Once I the new version for the mac is out will I be able to download that with my same receipt or will I have to purchase it again?
    You will be able to download the new install files from the same receipt. :)

    Georg Zoeller, Designer

    Neverwinter Nights: Kingmaker
    I purchased both of the mods and was very impressed with each, bravo. Still I wish to inquire about the module's build up themselves. I wanted to check them out in my toolset, but I can't seem to find a way to open the module in the toolset. I keep getting a message saying the mods were created using a newer version of the toolset, is there a way?
    No, unfortunately the modules can't be opened in the toolset. That said, if you want to know how something specific was done, feel free to ask your questions on this forum and, time permitting, Rob, Dan or Cori might be able to comment on it or explain how it was done.

    Lite-to-premium upgrades?
    I don't think that's planned.

    Epic Modules
    We are aware that there is quite some demand for modules in the epic level range and plan on looking into that if the store model is successful.

    Mac / Linux?
    Linux support is coming with 1.65, as stated above. Once it is added, the .zip version will be available from the store (including for people who already downloaded the .exe version). We are committed to supporting the Linux and Mac platform with NWN and the NWN premium modules.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 3, 2018
    chevalier, Nov 13, 2004
    #1
Sorcerer's Place is a project run entirely by fans and for fans. Maintaining Sorcerer's Place and a stable environment for all our hosted sites requires a substantial amount of our time and funds on a regular basis, so please consider supporting us to keep the site up & running smoothly. Thank you!

Sorcerers.net is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to products on amazon.com, amazon.ca and amazon.co.uk. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.