Neverwinter Nights Forum News P2 (Oct. 26, 04)

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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

Some questions

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- what's the estimated size of the modules in Mb to download ?

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Smallest is 12 Meg, largest is around 110 Meg.

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Quote: - Will we able to open the module with aurora ? (especially to watch the new script)

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No.

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Quote: - If new voiceset and/or portraits are added, will it be possible to use them when creating new pc (with the soundset.2da or portraits.2da often found on the vault) or using them on a new module (example, use the new voiceset on a npc or music on an aera in a non-premium related module with hakpak)? By possible, you can understand both "legit" and "technically possible".

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No.

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Quote: - Are you planning modules using officials campaign npc ? For example, module of tomi's adventures with his best friend sam in calimport or deekin in his new tribe.

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Not at this time.

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Quote: - This question can be linked with the last one but are you planning modules which would continue the official campaign of HOTU ?

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Not at this time.

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Quote: - how much money do you need to develop a single module like kingmaker and how much customers are you hoping to make it profitable ?

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We won't be answering questions like this.

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Quote: - how much money would it cost you to make a single module in a non-english language (french or spanish for example) ?

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The short version is that it is cost-prohibitive at this time.

User modifications

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Is there some reason why we can't be given the ability to similarly protect our modules from tampering?

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The current incarnation of this system is tied to both the Store and the Master Server and as such only works for our modules. We have no plans at this time to change the way that modules work for the community and such a fundamental change at this late in the game could go wrong with the limited resources that we have for that kind of change.

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Quote: My current projects will contain a tremendous amount of custom content made specifically for the modules. It would be nice to be able to prevent others from pilfering all that content and spreading it around without regard for its intended purpose.

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Something like this may happen in a future BioWare title, similar to how many first person shooter editors work, in which there is a source Map file and a generated Level file that everyone uses to play. It is an interesting idea, though.

More:

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i still think the more you can get under the hood on a game the more appeal it has. obviously you want to consider the piracy issue but i can see the potential negative impact on the size of a community for something like this.

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True enough, but there are a number of ways that we can deal with this outside of the game content stream. We could do profiles on the guts of certain modules and areas, we could put up sections for download to builders, etc. We haven't made any decisions about this yet, but we are certainly going to keep on supporting the entire community.

Compatibility with other version

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If I download a premium module, can I play it on a French version of NWN (I think yes) or will the security be a problem to play on other version (a friend think that an English version of NWN might be necessary in order to play to a premium module ).

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You will be able to play the modules regardless of your game install's language. The modules themselves are in English only at this time.

Back ups?

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I pay some $$$ for a module I want to download. I download it. Start up NWN and suddenly a computer virus decides to blow up my computer. Can I download the module again for free then?

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Yes, you will always be able to re-download a module you have purchased.

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Quote: Also, would it be possible/easy to burn such a module and it's custom content to a back up CD for in case the download website goes down on the same time as my computer?

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Simply burn the install package that you downloaded to a CD.

Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager

Unofficial Premium Content FAQ v. 0.1
I would make a small correction/suggestion: the modules have not been officially rated yet but we are more or less expecting a Teen rating but we will have to wait and see.

So wait a sec, we have to pay for another module to get WW?
Pro or con I think this is an excellent discussion. Too often people take things too personally and get all crazy. The point of forums as I have said many times is for discussion and debate. If everybody agreed this would be a boring place.

If I can add my two cents in here. A project like CEP could happen but the checking that would be required to ensure that all pieces were not copyright material plus normal approvals by all the stakeholders would make the time frame for release nearly impossible. As was mentioned the choice will be up to the player if they wish to get the new modules or not. We are offering a choice. Derek F. was just in my office mentioning that we are in no way invalidating anything the community creates for free...in fact the idea is that by using community talent we are encouraging people to create content for NWN.

Unofficial Premium Content FAQ v. 0.1
Excellent point about sending your work to BioWare unsolicited. We actually have to be VERY careful about what happens with anything that is sent in. There is a particular legal document that must be signed prior to us looking at/hearing/playing anything. If something comes in unsolicited we are advised to bin it without breaking the seal. So it's not even an issue of us not having the time/being elitist or whatever we are legally advised against looking at unsolicited material. In addition, stuff being sent in is not the way community members come to our attention...it is for making good stuff that the community likes that gets our attention.

Rob Bartel, Senior Designer Live Team

Lite Version?
Kingmaker Lite is intended for those with low bandwidth or those who are uncomfortable with the $7.99 price point we've established for the full version of Kingmaker. Here's the breakdown of what's been removed with the aim of reducing the filesize (please recognize that these may change slightly prior to release):

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Kingmaker has 500+ lines of custom VO including voicesets for the four henchmen. Kingmaker Lite has no custom VO and no henchmen voice sets.

Kingmaker has 4 custom load screens. Kingmaker Lite has only 1.

Kingmaker makes use of the Stormy Skies skybox (that we were unfortunately unable to cram into 1.64 but will try to include in 1.65). In Kingmaker Lite, any areas using that skybox will show blank fog instead.

Kingmaker includes a custom credits movie that plays when you complete the module. Kingmaker Lite places the credits into a *.txt file in your docs folder instead.

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The big one is the loss of VO. Hope that clarifies the difference

Great Idea, Finally Implemented!
Thanks! It's been a long time coming and we're extremely glad to finally be making this announcement. Spread the word

Thank you Bioware!!!
Haha! Content definitely seems to be the bottleneck here so we're working hard to bring it to you. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy our opening three modules.

Piracy
All right, everyone, tone down the rhetoric and namecalling, please. As others have stated, BioWare fully supports and celebrates the existence of so much free content for Neverwinter Nights and the introduction of these premium modules does nothing to jeopardize it. As I've argued elsewhere, the existence of premium modules actually works to the benefit of the creators of free content and of the community at large.

We feel that the prices we have set are affordable and in keeping with the value of the modules that we're offering. Hopefully the community agrees with us and, if they don't, shame on us. Judging by the overall positive tone of peoples' response so far, I think we're on the right track.

As for questions of piracy, it will be attempted regardless of what price we sell these modules for. We've developed a number of security measures to address the issue and will continue to introduce more as needed. Security measures aside, the Live Team continues to build a relationship of trust and mutual concern with our community. We're here to support the community, advocate on their behalf when necessary, and develop content that meets their needs and interests. If we blow that, I'm afraid we have bigger issues than mere piracy.

Neverwinter Nights: Witch's Wake

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Quote: A broad selection of unique subraces specific to the Witch's Wake mythos. Will we be able to select subraces in the standard charcter creation or process? Or are the subraces only for NPC?

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When you select your race during character creation, there's a button there that says 'Subrace.' Click on that and it allows you to type in a subrace of your choosing. Instructions on what to type into that field to acquire the different Witch's Wake subraces will be announced at a future date. The system is set up so that both player and non-player characters can be given subraces. More information on WW subraces coming soon

Are the mods Transferable? Refundable?
Premium module purchases are linked permanently to your CDKey and all sales are considered final (this is typical of digital content, I believe). We make an effort to test the compatibility of our premium modules across a wide variety of machines, including the minimum specifications for the Hordes of the Underdark expansion (which is required for all three modules). In the rare circumstance that your machine meets those minimum specifications but is still unable to run the module, our tech support team will do their best to get you up and running. If it's a patchable issue (either through a NWN patch or a patch to the module itself), we will make an effort to address it in that manner.

DD Content - Can the community use it?
Out of the box, as it were, premium module content cannot be extracted for independent use. That said, we are making an effort to make some content available in an unencrypted form and David John's music may fall into that category. Also, we hope to patch various types of content into core NWN after the fact or release it as a freely available independent download. In short, there are a lot of ways that we can address this and we'll pick and choose on a case by case basis, with an aim to minimize the overall fragmenting of our community.

New content for everyone?
As I just posted to a similar thread by Squidget, we have a variety of ways to make such content available to the community and we'll deal with them on a case by case basis, based on what seems most practical or beneficial to the community at the time. It would definitely be a shame (and antithetical to what we're doing here) to release a bunch of cool content and then not turn all of you builders loose on it.

Non-module Premium Content?
Glad to see everyone coming around. Just to confirm what Orik has said above, we have no intention of fragmenting our community. The plan isn't fully established yet but our basic goal is to release premium non-module content to the community in some fashion (whether it's by not encrypting it in the first place, posting it as a free but optional download from our website, or integrating it into a future patch). It's simply not in our interest to keep cool content (be it music or artwork or underlying scripting systems) out of the hands of the talented module builders in the community.

Expected time between new releases?
If I've learned one thing about being a game developer over the past seven years, it's "never give release dates!" In an ideal world, I'd love to have five new modules available every month but I suspect it's an unachievable goal for the forseeable future. Suffice to say that content creation is our big bottleneck and we're going to do what we can to get quality content out to you in a timely fashion. For now, work on the assumption that our schedule does not allow for monthly releases.

Live Internet Connection
Authentication is a necessary evil and we recognize that some potential customers may be excluded as a result of this decision. We apologize for this but it's inherent to our online distribution model and allowed us to piggyback our development on the 'master server' model that's proven very successful for NWN multiplayer. To clarify, however: for those of you on dialup or other pay-per-minute sorts of plans, you are *not* required to maintain an internet connection for the entire duration of play. It's only required when you launch a new game or load a saved game. If you are on such a plan, we recommend shutting down your internet connection once authentication is complete.

We want to be as up front about this as possible. The last thing we want is for our players to purchase a premium module on the mistaken assumption that they can play it on a machine that has no internet access. We list it as one of our minumum specifications for the module and we ask that you treat in that light.

Cool but... odd
We haven't ruled out more elaborate pricing strategies (bulk purchasing, discounts, fire sales, etc) in the future. For launch, however, it makes sense to keep things simple and straightforward. Bundling Witch's Wake in with ShadowGuard was about as complex as we want to make it right now. If this notion of premium modules proves successful, it's quite likely that we'll see a greater degree of sophistication within the system in the future.

Question: Concering downloads
It's an unfortunate reality, to be sure, which is why we want to be as clear and up front about this requirement as possible. Hopefully you'll have better access to the internet in the future.

Will premium Mods Be Available In Actual Stores?
Just to get back to the original question, it's not entirely inconceivable that a "NWN Platinum Plus" boxed set may emerge in bargain bins for next Christmas, containing a bundle of all premium modules released thus far. Would it be economically viable? Who knows. Atari, our publisher, would be in a better position to answer that sort of question and, at the end of the day, it's up to them whether they want to pursue that sort of option. Personally, I don't see it being particularly likely but I'm of the "never say never" school of thought when it comes to these sorts of things.

Are these FR modules or generic D&D?
The current list of three modules are not based in the FR mythos, though we haven't ruled out setting future premium modules there. Wizards of the Coast has been very good to work with over the course of developing these modules and it's clear that there is a market for further NWN content in a FR setting. We'll have to see how things develop as we move forward.

Some questions

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So these are just modules that cannot even be opened in the toolset to see the scripting used etc.? OK, now I really don't understand.

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As a side effect of our security measures, you will not be able to open premium modules in the toolset. That said, we may release components of particular interest (scripting systems, new art or audio content, etc) in a format that will be usable by the builder community. Whether they get integrated into patches, made available as a free download, or are delivered unencrypted with the purchase of the module, may vary on a case by case basis. As a general rule of thumb, we will be keeping the interests of the community in mind and will be working hard to ensure that premium modules don't result in the fragmentation of our community.

Any chance of new voicesets?

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More henchman voices are good. Any chance those could be put in a patch so they could be used in non-DD modules? Or are they too character-specific for this to work?

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Hehe. I specifically went into Dan's voice sets and edited out anything I considered too module-specific before we sent him in the recording studio (sorry, Dan!). Voice sets have a surprisingly complicated resource pipeline, so we may face some logistical hurdles (translating them into foreign languages, for instance) but we're going to look into ways to make the 4 Kingmaker sets available.

What happens after NWN 2?
The BioWare Store and the concept of premium modules is set up in such a way to allow for collaboration between BioWare and Obsidian on NWN2 content, should that be desired. As it's ultimately a three-way business decision to be negotiated between Atari, Obsidian, and BioWare, it's not something we can speculate on at this time. Personally, I would really like to see NWN2 premium modules here someday as I think everyone will benefit from it (the three stakeholders listed above as well as the community at large). We'll have to see how it pans out

Neverwinter Nights: Witch's Wake

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Any rough estimate on when WW2 will be done (I know - 'when's it's done <g>'. Is it possible that we will see it before Xmas?

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Not in time for Christmas, no.

Back ups?
And yes, you can also burn it to a backup CD.

Kingmaker Art
Yes, we've deliberately developed promotional art that can be reused in a variety of ways, including in-game portraits. Sneaky, huh? As for the helmet on the Kingmaker dude, the artist actually based it off of one already available in Neverwinter. Dig around for it and I'm sure you'll recognize it.

Witch's Wake- free with ANY purchase?
I'm not qualified to answer the tax question but as for the bundling decision, it was a matter of keeping with the Witch's Wake tradition of celebrating community content. While I couldn't include community-created content in the remastered Witch's Wake module itself, this was considered the next best thing. There was also some statistical reasoning behind it, as well. Bundled together, WW and SG have a roughly similar filesize as that of the full Kingmaker module, which allows us to compare apples to apples to a certain degree when interpreting sales data. The remastered version of Witch's Wake will probably be bundled with further modules in the future (WW2 would be an obvious candidate, for instance). For now, however, you can only get it with a purchase of ShadowGuard.

Xbox & PC Modules
Here's the link to the Gamespot article. To correct the initial poster, the article refers to us developing a wide range of future content for the BioWare Store. Some of it may be NWN-related, some of it may be related to our other titles (be they on Xbox, the PC, or some other platform entirely), some of it may be purely physical goods, and some of it may be games developed by other professional game companies entirely. Will all of this come to pass? Who knows but that's the big picture view of what this site could evolve into in the future. While I'd love to see NWN on the Xbox, it's highly unlikely that this will happen and there's nothing in the Gamespot article to change that. Sorry for any confusion,

WW Multiplayer
The remastered version of Witch's Wake is a little smoother in multiplayer than the original version but I would still classify it as multiplayer-capable rather than multiplayer-friendly. I have some ideas and systems in mind to improve things even further in the sequel. Will it be fun to play through Witch's Wake in cooperative multiplayer? If that's your cup of tea, I think you'll have a blast. It's an improvement over both the original WW and the official campaigns in this regard. Is the focus solely on supporting multiplayer play? No, it's been written and tested primarily as a single-player module.

How about stuff for builders?
Orik offers some good explanations of the role of premium modules within the larger community and what's in it for the builder community in this thread. Give it a read.

Neverwinter Nights: Witch's Wake

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Improved subsystems (you now receive XP for combat). This seems like a change in the philosophy of the module. Was this driven by massive player demand?
What's the ratio like? - is this going to drive people to kill everything on the map 'because it's there'?

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There was a substantial controversy about it when the module released and, to be honest, I saw their point. Combat still plays a very minimal role when it comes to XP and leveling in the remastered version but there's just enough there that you feel you're gaining something for your efforts. It was a simple fix, actually, as all it entailed was bumping up the Combat XP slider from 0% to 1%.

WW Multiplayer
Each player will have to have their CDKey authorized as a WW owner (i.e. they purchased the SG/WW bundle) and have the hakpak installed in the proper directory on their machine. On a purely technical level, they don't need the actual module itself.

Are the mods Transferable? Refundable?

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So the modules are tied to the CD key, not my person? If I ever wanted to sell my copy of NWN I just could advertise it as "NWN+both expansions + modules x, y and z"?

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Yes. Personally, I'd be hesitant to buy it from anyone but a close friend, however, as they could still have NWN installed on their machine and be using the CDKey they just sold me, etc. Purchasing CDKeys from other users is dangerous business and does increase your exposure to abuse. That said, the scenario you describe is technically possible.

Multiplayer
Witch's Wake supports cooperative multiplayer. As for ShadowGuard and Kingmaker, they're not designed to support multiplayer and they haven't received any multiplayer testing. You may be able to brute force your way through but we haven't tried it.

People that use the override directory...
While we generally discourage people from using the override directory, it's conceivable that we could list (or even post) the *.2das we're using in our various premium modules for the benefit of the tinkerers among us. Remind us of this sometime after the modules have been successfully released.

Witch's Wake- free with ANY purchase?

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I vaguely recall that Bioware promised to bring out Witch's Wake I and II for free way back when before the first expansion pack. I see that Witch's Wake I is still "free" in a loose sort of way. I wonder if Witch's Wake II will be a pay-for module? I must say I'm disappointed that Bioware has chosen effectively to charge for WW I instead of delivering it free of charge. I played and enjoyed the original WW I and was disappointed when WW II was put on hold indefinitely. The WW series was a nice departure from the heavy hack and slash of the official campaigns. While I may be induced to buy the premium modules, after positive reviews on the net, I still think the Witch's Wake modules should be available to all Neverwinter Night's buyers free of charge.

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Yes, that had definitely been the original hope. The cold reality, however, was that the 'free' nature of the Witch's Wake series led to me being pulled onto other projects such as Jade Empire, SoU, and HotU. The only way to get me back onto the Live Team was to develop this notion of premium modules and a sustainable revenue stream to support our work. Witch's Wake 2 will be sold as a premium module because it was a choice of that or not at all. While I definitely regret this change in our original plans, what I regret most is that we couldn't get this store up even sooner so I could deliver Witch's Wake 2 in a far timelier manner. The notion of free BioWare-developed content is a noble one and we definitely gave it our best shot. In the end, it very quickly proved itself unsustainable. My hope is that the BioWare Store can provide stable and reliable funding for the Live Team over the longer term so these sudden year-long disappearances of mine don't turn into a habit.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

What happens after NWN 2?
That's like what, 2 years out? Not a really pressing topic

Firewall
If you are able to play NWN multiplayer on your machine, premium modules should work for you as well.

Live Internet Connection

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So basically BioWare treats every customer as a potential pirate. I´m not sure if this really is a good idea. I don´t know if there is a better solution but I´m afraid they will lose more customers than they will win (I wan´t my Secure ROM back). I thought to buy them both but now I´m somewhat unsure...

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Think of it as along the same lines those electronic gates at the door of every store these days, walmart, future shop, whatever. I don't like those either, I feel uncomfortable to walk through them and it's surely annoying when they forget to remove a tag from the stuff you buy when you check out and you set them off - but I have long accepted that these are a necessary evil and that I'd starve to death if I started to boycott all the stores that use them. Well, at least you don't have the problem of embarassing false alarms with our system. They do that not to treat everyone as potential thief, but to deal with the fact that there is a minority of thieves out there.

Piracy
It would be nice if we could now all get back to whatever we were doing and stop picking at each other. Thanks alot. As for taking something previously free and turning it into a product with WW, let's be clear on this:

- The original WW is still free.

We had plans for a free WW series, but it has proven to be way too expensive to bind some of the companies most experienced people such as Rob into such a project which keeps them away from the new games we create - which keep us alive. So rather than scrapping the idea of a series alltogether, we decided to continue it as premium module. Bluntly spoken, if not for the premium module project, you would have never seen anything of the WW series again, because it was not an economically feasible option. The question is now - if the option is "nothing" or "premium module" what do you lose by the fact we selected "premium module"? Plus - WW1 Remastered is bundled free with Shadowguard.

Live internet connection required?
We won't discuss the technology used here, but type of your internet connection doesn't matter for authorization (ah, well, I could see 14.4k modems becoming problematic), 56k people should be fine. And yes, you can sever the connection after the module has been loaded, you do not need to maintain a constant internet connection - only to start the module or load it from a savegame.

Dan Whiteside, Designer

Any chance of new voicesets?
I am very excited about the new voice sets in Kingmaker, but they are only for the henchmen, not for pc's. I would venture that Bioware would consider more v.o. in the future, if the Full version of Kingmaker sells well. We really need to find out if v.o. is worth the cost. If most people download the lite version, then it would seem not.

Campaign
My plan was for Kingmaker to be a series, too. Guess we will just have to see how it goes.

Will premium Mods Be Available In Actual Stores?
Sorry, but times are difficult to pin down. Officially the time is 5-8 hours on Kingmaker, you are correct. Having said that, I took a lot longer playing through KOTOR than some of my friends, so maybe I just like reading through every bit of dialogue I can.

Any chance of new voicesets?
Strangely, several QA didn't think v.o. would add much either, until they got to play the full version with the v.o. That changed their minds. It really can make a difference, if you can contrast with and without.