Neverwinter Nights Forum News

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(Originally posted by chevalier)

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. 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.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Devastating critical: Eh ... you need to chose devastating critical for a specific weapon, right? When shapeshifted, most forms won't allow you to execute devastating criticals, that's by design.

Further:
Unfortunately (for you) many forms are not considered unarmed, they are fighting with creature weapons (claws, bite, special attack), which is not considered "unarmed" in NWN. So, no it is not a bug, you will need to find the forms that have no creature weapons if you want to use your devastating critical ability.

Georg's own HotU:

Ok, I finally got my official copy (NWN:HotU US)

- The manual has 111 pages, there are no missing pages.
- The text is english only
- The CDKey is printed into the inside of the cover
- The first word on page 56 is Great Constitution
- My firstname is spelled wrong in the credits for the manual.

Note that this information is true for the US Version only. European versions seem to be different most of the time, usually because they try to fit it into a DVD box

Holy sword: Hey, also check out that new paladin spell called Holy Sword (it works with non sword's as well ... holy avenger whips rock)!

Kensei leftovers: No secret here, the weapon master was originally planned to be a Kensei, but we were informed later that this would not fit into the Forgotten Realms setting, so we changed it to Weapon Master. The files are just leftover, you can disregard them

Epic Weapon Specialisation: Only epic fighters can get epic weapon specialization.

Include file:

Here we go ... how includes work:

Making a change to an include file requires you to recompile any single script that includes that file. Why? because include files themselves are not compiled, there is no .ncs file for them. Their contents is compiled into the scripts that include them. So if you change a function in an include file, the change will not take effect until you recompiled the scripts that include this function. However ... if you "build" module frequently anyway, all your scripts get recompiled each time and you never will have found the need to recompile dependent scripts. I hope that sheds some light into that matter

1.60 changes: Just a small heads up, 1.60 will fix a talktable related bugs (if you save and reload, the game seems to forget your talktable in 1.59). It will also have some small changes to spells and feats.2da, so make sure you catch them when updating.

OnHit:

Quote: In the toolset, I've noticed an "on hit" property for ARMOR. Does this effect the wearer or the attacker? If one, it could be used for cursed items...if the other, I could finally fake my favorite spell: Chain Contingency. (I'm a big fan of Timestop+Gate+Teleport.

It will affect the attacker. i.e. if you put lightning bolt onto the armor, it will blast the attacker on each successful hit that deals damage. However you can make your own scripts (see the sticky in the scripting forum about 1.60 new functions) that would i.e. heal the wearer of the armor or teleport him away, by adding the OnHitCastSpell: Unique Power itemproperty to the armor.

Overwriting Default Scripts:

Quote: Georg, respectfully, my point is that all the EXISTING spells need to be messed with and recompiled. I've done fixes for 80% of the Bioware spell scripts, so now I'd have to go back and add your header to all of them and recompile.

With all due respect ... that was to be expected. Every time you overwrite a default bioware script, you need to know that this script may change in a patch. We did a lot of bug fixes and enhancements to most of the spellscripts and you really can't expect us not to do them because someone may have overwritten these spells. Every time you touch any resources starting with nw_ x0_ x1_ or x2_ you must know that the file you are touching is subject to change. There is even a warning in the toolset when you try to overwrite an existing script. If you want to make your own additions to the header, you can do so by using x2_pc_umd or x2_pc_craft without having to recompile all the scripts.

Dave McGruther, Client Care Specialist

Dye types: There are different types of dyes. Make sure you are using a metal dye.

Darcy Pajak, Assistant Producer

HotU levels: It is very much harder when you are 12th, it was the lowest level we felt a person could play and still survive. On the bright side, you should advance levels slightly quicker.

Deekin disarm:

Quote: I forgot to ask... How do you get Deekin to disarm traps?

If Deekin spots a trap and he has the skill to diarm, he will automaticly disarm it. However you can also right click on him, and select the "disarm trap" icon. If he does not have the skill to disarm the trap, he will walk over it and trigger it

Whips: Yes, with the whip in hand you get the disarm feat.

Run animation: The main reason we put in the new run animation was not for the Robes, but for the new camera angle. When we played in 3rd person view, the "bounce" the player made seemed very silly. It seemed to us that so much bouncing would cause serious internal damage.

Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager

Presale Creatures: We will probably deal with pressing issues first before we begin including the presale creatures. We want people playing the game first and foremost before we do anything.

Bob McCabe, Writing & Design

HotU Weapon Effects: I'm not sure, statistically, but I get the feeling that sonic is the best (as was said), followed by, for HotU, electricity. I would probably suggest that acid, fire, and cold damage are all around the same level of effectiveness.

Rob Bartel, Co Lead Designer

Tilesets: We've used them for both in the campaign. Lighting, weather, placeables and sound (and now skies!) are your friends. They really help when trying to define a particular atmosphere. I once used the Sewer tileset to create the slums of Victorian London, for instance. It worked out surprisingly well.

Hiring community members: We've hired some community members but not Gagne yet. I believe we offered at one point but he didn't bite.

NWN with both expansions: I'm sure such a package will come out at some point but I don't know of any specific plans to do so at this time, nor have I heard any internal speculation as to when it might be released. It could very well be a longer wait than it was for the NWN Gold bundle.