Neverwinter Nights Forum Update

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(Originally posted by Tiamat)

Derek French, Assistant Producer:

Number One Requirement:The number one requirement of NWN is a video card/chipset will a fully implimented OpenGL driver. Most of the games quoted in this thread are talking about Direct3D games. Just because a Direct3D runs on your computer is no guarentee of an OpenGL game working.
Try running Half-Life in OpenGL mode, Quake 2 (in OpenGL) or 3, or BG2's bggltest.exe program and see how that works for you. If any of those work, NWN should work for you. This includes the Toolset as well as the game.

Stanley Woo, Quality Assurance Ninja:

Models on Screen:The number of animated models appearing on screen simultaneously depends on a number of factors. Things such as speed of machine, animated tiles, area size of the area, the number of scripts running simultaneously, will all affect how many models can appear on screen before frame rate is greatly affected.
I've seen a blank test area with upwards of 20 creatures moving without degrading framerate. I've seen a huge, populated areas with couple of moving creatures that slows down considerably. That's as specific as I can get right now. When we get closer to release, and things like content and optimization are finalized, we'll be able to give you more information. Hope that helps. I demand you smile, everybody!

Point Buy System:You know, people, I really don't see the problem here. what does it matter how many points there are for point buy? If we say 25, people want 28. If we say 30, people want 35. If we say 40, people want 42. And all for the same reason: diversity in the character, so characters aren't "cookie cutters," to eliminate "powergaming."

Regardless of the reason or the number of points or the character creation system, what prevents you from building your own game? Or hosting whatever rules you like? I'll tell you the answer: NOTHING!

You want diversity of character? Fine. Choose the number you want for each ability. That way, there's no points limiting how high or low your stats are, and no randomness of dice to keep re-rolling until you get the numbers you want. You are free to choose.

You want 28 points? Fine. Use 28 points, but don't think that 3 extra points will give you any more diverse or "creative" a character than 25, 22, or even 10. The character is what you make it, not what the numbers say. A man with 18 STR can be a pacifist bodybuilder, a manual labourer-turned-wizard, a Gnome arm wrestling champion, a small boy who fell from the sky in an egg, a mystic warrior who launches only one physical attack per opponent. What does a 3 INT mean? A well-meaning illiterate, or a rampaging beast? Does 16 CHA represent an attractive Dwarf, an intimidating Elf, or a Gnome that everyone just loves having around?

You want randomness? Roll 3D6, or 4D6, or 4D6 drop the lowest. Assign randomly, or roll in order. It's all good.

These are all valid methods of character stat creation. People will like some, and hate others. What I don't understand is, how long are we going to realize that further debate on this topic is fruitless, since we can't even agree to disagree? I'm sorry if I seem perturbed. It's just that this keeps coming up, and nothing is ever resolved by it. I just felt I had to get my opinion out there. Thank you all for reading. I'm going to bed.

Jonathan Epp, Quality Assurance:

Making Trees Fall: You probably wouldn't be able to do that with trees that are a part of the tileset. However, there will be at least a couple of different trees that are placeable objects. This means that they can be placed anywhere you want, and you can make them 'usable', and you can attach scripts to them. So for placeable trees you would be able to do something. It would take a little bit of experimentation to figure out the best way of doing it, but I don't see why you shouldn't be able to do something at least similar to what you're looking for.