Neverwinter Nights Forum News

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(Originally posted by Veldrin)

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

David Gaider, Designer

Missing Features: Besides polymorph "not being worth a damn", it's set up on purpose to prevent players from using items while in their alternate form for very good (and I thought pretty obvious) reasons. If you want some alternate form that's still going to be able to use items (to fly? eh? well, whatever...) you're not looking at polymorph but some kind of SetAppearance ability, really. Which I doubt is going to happen anytime soon. And what was the other thing? I'm forgetting... Oh yeah. Carrying non-dead players. Hmmm... we haven't even tried implementing corpse-carrying yet (though as Papermonk points out it's scriptable), I'm not even sure how you would go about carrying other players... or just how useful a feature that would be, sorry.

Quote: I would like to point out to you David - in no uncertain terms - I take this as an invitation to hack the executable or create a DM bot so we can get around this deliberate CRIPPLE in Bioware's code. The commuinity is just damn tired of waiting for a simple change to code over a difference in design philosohpy of what it an appropriate game ability. At some point - the person who said "no" might want to consider that maybe the original decision has evolved into a mistake. Not blaming you specifically David - but if its a hack Bioware wants - it's a hack you'll get.

You can make ultimatums if you like, but that doesn't make a SetAppearance function any more of a priority compared to all the other things we have going, rtrifts. We know that people are interested in SetAppearance and that it's necessary for some things builders want to do, etc etc... along with a great number of other things. All have someone crying how bloody urgent it is and what an oversight it would be not to include it, no? XP2 has a pretty full plate as it is and there's no way we'll get to everything. We'll consider it, but as I haven't heard any discussion about it up to this point that's why I said it probably wasn't coming soon.

CODI and DLA and 2/3rds of the CC forum have been asking you guys to unmake that choice for 8 months. If Bioware was interested in doing that by now, in my estimation - it would have been done by now.

So if we haven't done it by now we never will? And I'm a frequent visitor to the CC forum, rtrifts. SetAppearance has certainly been asked for and there have been a couple of threads on it in the last 8 months, but I wouldn't even go so far as to say it is the most requested feature there. I could go into my opinions on how useful a SetAppearance function actually would be in reference to what it's wanted for, but that's not important, I suppose. What's important is that you obviously consider it a priority and have decided it's past time that we provided it.

Fair enough. We'll consider it, amongst many other things that we have to divide our efforts for the expansion. And if we can't fit it in (or come up with a final determination as to its feasibility) then the Live Team will have to do so after us. As for the community coming up with some great stuff that's been of benefit to all creators and many end-users... absolutely true, and we encourage it. The fact that there are people out there who will step in and make that stuff is great, and I don't look on it at all like they're a slap in our face that arises out of impatience. If there's a need out there, it will be filled... we'll do our part insofar as we can, considering that we have different needs, restrictions and resources than the average community member. Just hopefully we have the same goal. As far as your implication that we've made it necessary to hack the code to get what you want... well, obviously I really can't comment on that. You've got your own requirements for your project as you've stated many times... a project that looks quite interesting, from what I can see, and I wish you well on it.

New Familiars: But wouldn't you expect those animals to be really BIG? I wouldn't mind seeing them, myself, but the chance seems smaller if we had to re-do the model. Any ideas?

D&D Rules: Well, DeQuester, you certainly have a right to your opinion. No argument there. As far as the 3rd edition ruleset goes, I'm pretty certain that we are required to use them in order to make use of the D&D license. You will not see any more official products using rulesets from 2nd edition or earlier, and should you want to see such your argument is with WotC and not with us. That said, I will add that I'm a player of D&D, myself, back from the original Basic boxed set. Out of all the versions that have come since, I'd have to say that 3rd edition is by far the best in many respects, not the least of which is its versatility and friendly success systems (while I was indeed used to the way thAC0 and such worked, I can look back on it now and certainly recognize how abominably difficult it had become). Regardless of any of it, however, my basic belief is that it's not the rule system but what you make of it. One of the funnest PnP campaigns I ever had was with the original Marvel Super Heroes boxed set rules ("I use my Remarkable Strength!"), oddly enough.

I also remember the reaction when 2nd edition D&D first came out. You could hear the sacred cows being slaughtered en masse. I remember deciding not to buy all the new books and ended up dropping playing D&D altogether... it was not until something like a decade later that I got in with a group playing it and decided it wasn't so bad after all. But all that's just my opinion. Unfortunately, when it comes to this sort of thing there is no accomodating everyone. Progress is what is it is, and you may feel like you're tilting against windmills fighting it, so you have my sympathy.

Farms: Wow, those fields look really good. I know that agriculture in such a medieval-esque society is on a lot smaller scale than ours, but still I always thought our fields were a bit too "vegetable-plot"-sized. I'd have to agree with Aethelwyn's comment on the scattering. Every wheat field I've seen looks more like a carpet of waist-high stalks. You generally can't see through them... although I suppose older-style agriculture might not have been so uniform. One thing I'd like to see, personally, is a proper wine orchard. I *think* we did a placeable for it... but as I recall the plants were spaced a bit far apart and it was pretty small and fenced-in. Heck, on my last trip through Austria there were plenty of orchards that were farming pretty much as they always had and those orchards practically lined the hills. But, anyway, it's looking great so far. I can totally see a small farming community surrounded by large, communal fields... a picture which appeals to my need for a certain amount of reality in my fantasy, you know?

Quote: Yeah, I'm as glad to see Defensive casting as the next person, but that means we have to sacrifice a feat to get it.

Ummm... no, no. Defensive Casting is a combat posture that's available to any spellcaster. It simply means you're paying more attention to combat and are attempting to avoid an attack of opportunity for spell-casting... though you run the risk of failing and losing the spell, as well.

Quote: ha HA! Things are said here that make no sense to me! On the first hand these people say "We couldn't do xxxx because we don't have enough resources" and on the other way they say "Its done when its done!" These things lead me to believe that there is an unspoken deadline! Ah! I am making no sense and this is frustrating to me. What I am saying if I make respeak myself is that even a few guys can add very much if they have "no deadline". ha HA! That is what I am meaning!

Ummm... we have internal schedules and targets, obviously. Whether or not we meet them is a constant struggle and our internal schedule is constantly getting shuffled and updated. That's not the same as having no deadline. And you can't just keep adding stuff until one day the game is done... it still have to be tested and the bugs fixed. The dates the public receives are based on our estimates. There's no way for us to be more accurate then that, as we never know how long testing and bug fixing is going to last. Heck, I'd love to have exact dates that never changed (sort of... we'd ship on that date whether the game was ready or not, but at least I could plan a vacation for once. ) That's the way the industry works out of necessity... it's not lying, so whoever is crying about that just has to suck it up.

Tom Ohle, Communications Associate

Windows: There is a placeable window in SoU.

I don't think there's a placeable sunray, no...

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

Hak Packs: I believe the game will not load a module if it can't find a .hak pack that the module says it requires. However, the game should be able to handle missing resources (such as sounds, scripts and blueprints). So, I think it should be possible to make an empty .hak pack with the same name as the one that contains all your sounds. This would allow the game to load the module and then the game should run fine.Keep in mind, I haven't actually tried this.

Coloured Boxes & Radeons: Yes, we are aware of this issue. Not being a graphics programmer however, I can't actually comment on it. Keep in mind that posts like yours made on a weekend are _unlikely_ to receive a response from the development team (it's a fluke that I spotted when I did) until at least the start of the next week, so please be patient.