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

Ice Storm:

Quote: Let me just verify because this is a gigantic debate going on in my PW world now...A Mage being able to continually cast Maximized/Empowered Ice Storms was done intentionally? If this is correct could I get the reasoning behind this so that I can pass on some feedback to my PW so people will let it die...

It's an epic character (shifter, not mage), what do you expect? Fighters can kill with devastating critical at that point and weapon masters can do damage in the hundreds, I hardly see a problem here, especially with the pretty low overall damage on ice storm compared to other spells. Finally NWN is open enough to change whatever you want about a class, so if you feel you don't want people to have that ability on your server, you can always change or remove it.

Pay per download:

Quote: Well, I am most certainly against pay for play in this fashion. If they put WW series on disc and ship to the software store then I will buy it, but how things can easily mess up one's hard drive (like a corrupted Track 0) and lose all that content one has just bought. Then what? We will have to buy aeverything all over again. No thank you.

Regardless how it would be done technically, you can be sure that you would always be able to redownload something you purchased - that's one of the basics of digital distribution. I recently bought my first game via a digital distribution system, it took about 20 minutes (paying, downloading and burning it to disk). It did cost me 50% less than if I would have bought the game in a store (not counting the cost of driving to the store, getting a parking lot, etc - or shipping and handling if I bought it in an online store). I always can redownload the game from the companies server as well, in case my download gets lost, all I need is the CDKey I got when I bought the game. I wouldn't do this for every game. For certain games, I just want to have that box in my shelf and I want to have that manual (and thus I can understand you), but the game would have come in a DVD box anyway ... As said by Rob, you can expect a digital distribution system to be done right - IF we would go that route ( which would include the ability to redownload things you already bought, of course).

Tom Ohle, Communications Assistant

Pay per download: While I'm slowly chugging through this thread, I want to make a quick statement so that I can clear this up...We haven't announced any formal plans for digital distribution... we're still discussing the possibilities internally. What that means is that statements like "But I won't be able to do this!" aren't overly fitting at this point... since we don't know what you will or won't be able to do. Definitely keep posting your ideas, as they may help us make some decisions, but know that nothing is set in stone yet.

Rob Bartel, Co Lead Designer

Pay per download: Regarding our intended audience, we do have data regarding patch downloads, web visits from unique IPs, active accounts, survey respondents, and so forth that do indicate a substantial number of 'silent participants' in the NWN community. They may not post on the boards or post content to the Vault, you may not recognize their account names but they are out there and they are actively engaged in the NWN experience. Our preliminary estimates suggest that the acctive community is large enough for something like this to be viable but we may be wrong. As for how to reach these people, the patch updater has already been mentioned as one possible route. A little bit of press coverage, paid advertising, and discussion with the Vault may also be required. We'll have to see.

Maize: As for your concerns about there being insufficient information on which to speculate at this point, that may be true. I'll turn the question around a bit, though, and ask you what you would consider to be a proper cost:value ratio (recognizing, of course, that everyone may have a slightly different opinion on that). WW1 was a high-quality 3-hour module. Is that worth $10? $5? $1? Nothing at all? What about longer modules? What about individual components such as creatures or tilesets, should we go down that route (again, my advice would be not to but the issue is definitely still up for debate)?

Regarding the notion of CD hard copies and alternate payment schemes, all these things are possible, though we may choose not to phase those sorts of things in until after we establish the core framework. Again, everything is speculation at this point which means it's a very good time to voice your opinions, offer new suggestions, and troubleshoot the idea for potential problems. If we do go down this route, we want to do it with your participation and input because, in the end, that's what the Live Team is all about.