Neverwinter Nights Forum Update

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(Originally posted by Darien)

Busy, busy on the boards lately! Here's another feast for all you NWN fanatics, who just can't get enough from the official Neverwinter Nights message boards.

Bob McCabe, Writing & Design

Localization issues: "Localization issues" just means that all of the text we write needs to be translated so happy gamers world wide can play. When you start fiddling with all of the variations on how to get certain information out of an NPC (such as saying wood, woods, tree, trees, forest, grove, glade, etc.), and then think about how well those words translate to different languages (not! , and then think about structuring keywords into sensible phrases... then you can see our "localization issues." So, if you aren't planning on releasing your modules for immediate translation world-wide, then I think you are safe using the keyword system

Seamless worlds: I think it's more a matter of giving the end-user more power. If we create a seamless world, where buildings can be entered-and-exited without a loading screen, then we also have to provide pre-fabricated houses. A lot of the reason we went with tiles was so that we could allow end-users to have total control over what the insides of each building looked like, instead of giving you three or four choices.

Believe me, I love the idea of seamless worlds, and I think they would be so much fun to do in a game, but I don't think we have enough time and artists to deliver on that The exteriors are pre-fab, while the interiors are customizable, drawn
from the "interior" tileset.

The point I was trying to make was that if the insides and outsides were seamless, then they would also have to match-up. And if they matched, then you got less customization.

One day, though, one day...

Rob Bartel, Co-Lead Designer:

Chapter One: Just to leave you with a quick teaser, Chapter 1 will take place in the city of Neverwinter. In the wake of a virulent plague known as the Wailing Death, the city has been placed under strict quarantine. Samples have been sent to Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun, a powerful wizard in Waterdeep, and he has gathered a shipment of exotic creatures who will serve as reagents to a cure. Unfortunately, the convey is beset by unknown assailants upon entering the city and the creatures are released into the Neverwinter night. Under the supervision of Lady Aribeth, Paladin of Tyr, the players will be working to recover the creatures, cure the Wailing Death, and get to the bottom of who or what is behind it...

And that's just Chapter 1... ;o)

Sub-Race Field: Also, if you'd like to use the Subrace field for anything else, you're more than welcome to (you just need to explain it to your players before they create their characters). The field could be used to represent your guild allegiance, for instance, or a 2nd Edition-style kit, or the fact that you are a creature of elemental fire or water or air. That's the wonderful thing about providing hooks for these fields within the scripting language - suddenly all manner of things become possible.

Editing Monsters: The NW Tools use a template-instance structure. In other words, there are two ways to create the Lickspittle creature from the E3 demo.

Method 1 - Editing the Instance: Select a pre-existing Goblin template from the panel on the right and place an instance of it in the world. Then select the instance within the gameworld and edit that (renaming it "Lickspittle," writing up some conversation, and swapping in some different scripts).

Method 2 - Editing the Template: Select a pre-existing Goblin template from the panel on the right and edit it directly. Save this out as a custom template named "Lickspittle," then place that creature as an instance into the world (as we did at E3).