Neverwinter Nights Forum Update

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(Originally posted by Arwen)

Trent Oster, Producer:

Template/class: The monster type doesn't have to count as a class. You can make a 20/20/20 Fighter/Sorcerer/Cleric Dragon if you so desire. The monster classes are more for customization than anything else.

NWN - game for kids or grown ups?: Don't worry about us going kiddie. The plots in NWN are much like the mix in Baldur's Gate, a few funny side plots, a little off beat humor and some more dark adult plots as well. We are aiming for the same teen rating we had with BG and we will orient the content accordingly.

Converting 3D formats: A smoothing group really means all the faces have roughly the same normals at the shared verticies. When you construct a smoothed series of polygons you average the normals at a shared vertex and assign the new normal values back to the polys. You get a smmothing effect as a result as the hardware shades between the verticies as if it were a rounded surface.

Hide skill: Hide balances out. Once your fighter spots the slittle sucker. Splatto. Halfling guck all over the place. Our "stealth" ability depends on the hide and move silently skills. You also have to take local lighting into account. It is harder to hide in bright light. As well, You only get one sneak attack from stealth. To get more sneak attacks you have to flank. So one on one a fighter will take a fair shot of damage up front, but then it gets ugly for the rogue.

User created content and naming convention: There are a few issues with what you propose.
The first is we only allow 16 character filenames.
The second issue is the time involved in setting up and maintaining the system you propose.
The Third issue is enforcement. What do you do when someone breaks the convention? We at Bioware don't have the resources to police the community for convention adherence.

Bob McCabe, Writing & Design:

The ability of Clerics to spontaneously cast: This is implemented. I actually got curious the other day and loaded up a cleric. From the cast spell radial, you have your "metamagic" and "spontaneous casting" and your normal "cleric spells" choices. Nice and easy (but not like the hair dye).

Subdual Damage: Let me play the Devil's Advocate for a moment and ask, "how often do you intend to make use of subdual damage?" For those who play D&D, how often have you made use of subdual damage?

Personally, the answer for me is: once or twice... maybe?

So... why not create simple work-arounds for those rare situations? Or more preferably, why bother creating a simple work-around, when we've already done it?

Just exactly what did we do? We created a surrender script which does just that - when the combat participant reaches a certain level of hit points that starts to make him feel squeamish about his future, he shouts out that he's done with fighting. At that point, combat ends. You can re-initiate combat and finish him, if you don't care about his surrender and want to show off how ruthless you are, or you can talk to him and see what you can work out.

"Yes, I'll accept your surrender - but I want some treasure/protection/information/guarantee that your other goons won't bother me anymore/etc." Heck, even throw in a persuade option to make it more dynamic. Through in some threats if he refuses your persuades - to let him know just how close to death he was, and still is.

Since you don't need to create the script, all you have to do is tell the creatures that you've made to utilize it. Now, suddenly, you don't have to worry about forcing your players to kill everything, if you don't want them to have to. Total power for the DM. And that's fine, right? And since we already put it into our campaign, you don't have to worry about it there, either. Load the game up and run. No need to edit a thing.

This game is very powerful, and there's a lot you can do with it. My suggestion here would take the community all of 5 seconds to come up with, if we hadn't beaten you all to the punch. Makes you wonder how amazing stuff can get when people put their thinking caps on...

Medieval/renaissance feminine attire: We've, obviously, spent much more time working on armor combinations which have much more function in the game, though there is a supply of simple clothing, as well as some slightly more elaborate clothing for the community that prefers non-violent roleplay. Of this clothing, there are some variations that are more suited for the female form, but there isn't anything like the elaborate dresses that you might see in a movie such as Shakespeare in Love or Dangerous Liaisons.

Dual Wield/Weapon Size: In Neverwinter, you can only dual wield weaponry that is the same size category as you, or smaller. A dwarf (med) can dual wield long swords, while a halfling would have to dual wield shortswords.

As far as I understand the rules (I couldn't find the guy who implemented them), and so far as what I know from playing the game, it appears that a rogue properly gets a sneak attack bonus on all attacks in situations where the defender is valid for a sneak attack. In other words, two rogues working in tandem will be quite the force!

Item icons: Every 3D item has a 2D counterpart. I think every variation on a 3D item also has a unique 2D variation as well - even boots (which I just played around with in the NW Toolset - though, as you guessed, do not have a 3D counterpart, just a 2D)!

When you're creating an item, you can see how the item will look in 2D and/or - if it has a 3D model - see it in the 3D viewer.

As for the second poster's question, the equipment that is visually represented is the helmet, any items wielded in the main or off-hand, and any clothing/suit of armor equipped in the chest slot of the inventory GUI.

30 Point Buy System: I guess the idea that 30 points is pushing you toward an uber character comes from the point of view of how easy it is to not only clear all the negatives, but make it so that every stat is giving you a positive. In other words, it's easy to make a character who is good at everything.

I personally prefer the lower point buys (and lower starting stats) because I like to see the negatives and positives balance out more. But I won't take that crusade up again. You've all probably gotten sick of hearing me whine about it by now.

I think it has less to do with realism in a fantasy game than creating an interesting character who overcomes flaws to work through a story.

Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager:

Violent content: Valid points. I get a little miffed when I go to see a 'horror' film and there is too many comedy bits which ruin the whole deal for me. I am a rabid horror fan and will be trying to make scary modules with the toolset. Rest assured that I am looking out for the 'serious' factor in the game. I am learning about the toolset by making a basic module about ye olde smokey inn set beside the foggy swamp. Setting the fog and lights really helps with the atmosphere. Having creatures silhouetted against the background is really very cool. I can tell when a group of flesh golem come shambling out of the fog it's a scary thing. The best moment was the lone wolf at the top of a small riser silhouetted. Yeeks.

Dialog tree depending on charisma: You can set dialog trees based on nearly every characteristic in the game if you want. The common example is nobility being terse with a PC because they lack a certain level of Char. With the toolset you can use things like class, alignment, items, race and so on to decide reactions or dialog paths. How about a huge barbarian half-orc that makes fun of a PC based on a weak Str score?

David Gaider, Designer:

Light Spell: Light is absolutely in. So is Darkness... and the Darkness spell works wonderfully. It creates this black fog-like area. If you're outside, those who are within that area can't be seen. If you're inside, everything on-screen suddenly goes pitch black.

Clarification on colours: The player chooses the color of their hair and skin on character creation.

After that, the color scheme is based purely on that of the armor/clothing that you wear. No PC has an 'inherent' color scheme. Nor can items have their colors changed on the fly.

Interrupting spells: Concentration as a skill is in, and works very much like it does in the PHB. The exact functionality I'm not sure of, but I know I've had my spells disrupted (and seen the Concentration rolls being made).

Gypsy Wagon/Gypsy Camp tileset: There's a tent interior (though I don't remember which tileset the tent exterior is in), and there's wagons... but nothing really gypsy-like.

Expansion packs and addons: While I have no knowledge (and I repeat I have no knowledge) of what might be slated for a possible expansion, I do have my own thoughts on what might be reasonable for such a project.

Keep in mind that an expansion, as opposed to a sequel, is going to have a smaller crew. It's also a smaller project... so the features you put into it are going to have to be weighed against both the time & effort it takes to implement it vs. the 'bang' you get for that.

By 'bang' I mean the worthiness of such a feature being a bullet point to get someone interested in the expansion. Just as an example (I have no way of knowing if this is true), let's say swimming would be a major endeavour requiring a huge chunk of the expansion team's time. Such a huge chunk would require that it be a major bullet point... would topping our feature list with "We've included SWIMMING!" be all that exciting? Maybe for some...

An expansion would also have to provide something for all types of NWN players. We've got to think not only about the mod-makers, but also those who are going to want to see more core rules implemented as well as casual players who are going to want more content. And all this is going to be aside from smaller changes that are likely to be requested to such things as the DM Client and scripting language that will be important but have no 'bang' at all.

Not knowing what features that currently exist are going to need changes or additions after release, I can only speculate, then, on some stuff that might be reasonable. Here's what I personally would like to see:

- a spell-making Wizard
- the incorporation of custom Feats & Skills (allowing the mod-maker to add them into the character creation & leveling process)
- a limited system for Prestige Classes (there is still the problem that no set system exists in D&D for how these classes are made and balanced... translating to a possible problem on how to give NWN DM's the power to allow & disallow them. Maybe they would have to be module-specific, but transferrable to other modules that specifically supported them?)
- cloaks, robes & dresses
- a new tileset or two
- a small selection of new monsters
- a module

Maybe this is too much already, maybe too little... I don't know. I could think of a lot more graphical enhancements, except that there's no way the majority of the expansion could be graphical in nature (gotta split it up between the departments, after all).
I know a big request is riding... I'm not so sure how do-able that is in an expansion. Not without cutting out a bunch of other art stuff, I'd imagine, but I've no way to know how difficult that is. Perhaps I'm way off base on that one (it would certainly be cool, if possible).

Once again, this is by no means an official list. Nor am I the one who decides these things. I'm just throwing out my thoughts on the subject. My thoughts on what could be done in a sequel are, of course, an entirely different matter.

Scythes: Yes, scythes are in.

Monster spawning: Actually, scripting isn't required for this. There is an 'Encounter' feature... which is exactly what you've heard about.

Basically you lay down a polygon on the map. Once any PC gets within a certain distance from that polygon, it becomes 'active' and spawns in a number of creatures equal to the challenge it's set at. The spawn takes place somewhere within the polygon nearest to where the PC is (so a large polygon means that encounter could be anywhere, and not 'just around the corner').

Encounters have the following options (via a wizard) when being made:

1) set the difficulty (this generates the total CR of creatures spawned compared to the levels of PC's approaching)

2) give the encounter a name and tag (it can be referenced with scripting, to make it activateable and deactivateable if you wish)

3) assign the min and max # of creatures it creates (min at least 1, max of 8 for a single polygon)

4) set spawn option ('single shot' = the encounter is gone once it spawns once, 'continuous' = the encounter will spawn continuously according to your settings)

5) give the encounter a list of creatures, it will select from this list according to CR (you can specify creatures as 'unique' so they will only spawn once, if you wish).

6) if it is marked as continuous, you can set the Reset Time and the max # of respawns.

7) you have the option to mark the encounter as only activated by PC's (otherwise any creature can potentially activate it)

8 ) Scripting Events: OnEnter, OnExhausted, OnExit, OnHeartbeat, OnUserDefined

Naturally, any of these things could change... and I might have gotten a thing or two wrong (if so, please forgive me). Overall, though, this is how it works... and it's quite handy.

Light: That's an interesting possibility. The light works as it would normally, so putting a light source (like a flame) inside a 3D hooded lantern would look exactly as it is supposed to. Huh. I wonder if that can be done?

As for the 'variable lighting' asked about originally... I've never seen anything like that. Light isn't an effect, so it doesn't work the same was the effects do.

Lighted Windows in Buildings: All doors open (or raise, if it's a portcullis). Windows don't open, no, but there are various other animations in the exterior tilesets (including smoke from chimneys).

Tiles can be individually selected and a couple of their properties edited. You can shut off any animations the tile has as well as edit one of two light sources.

I was playing with the tile-based light sources last night. Source 1 seems to come from overhead... Source 2 seems to come from the 'face' of the building, though not from the windows, per se. In an empty tile, giving Source 2 a 'light' colour gives that tile an ambient light with no apparent source. Some comments, then, from my observations:

1) In the night-time, buildings can be given some ambient light through the tile light source adjustments, as I mentioned above. I had one city street where all the buildings were dark except for one, which was faintly lit up (it did not look fake... you just couldn't tell where the light source was, and there were many shadows). I had one shop bathed in a dark purple light, which looked sort of cool.

2) Using the ambient lighting, one could make a placeable object which 'glowed'. It wouldn't have to actually eminate light, though... you could place it in the tile and increase the ambient light in that tile, and the assumption would be that the light was emanating from the glowing object. (No object like that currently in the menu, tho, it's just a thought... the flames and glowing objects produce their own light).

3) As far as windows go, I wasn't able to place an object on them that made it look like the window itself was glowing. Not that it couldn't be done, perhaps, but I didn't see a way. I did notice that some of the buildings have windows that do glow faintly at night, making it look like the lights are 'on' inside.

If the ambient lighting doesn't do it for you and you wanted to play with the windows, I could only suggest a couple of things. One would be to create a flat placeable object that 'fits' over the window, created with a glow... combine that with an increase in ambient light and it may do the trick. The other, of course, is to play with the skin of the tile, itself.
I'm not saying doing that would be easy, but just reporting what I saw from a few minute's play. The individual tile-editing for the light sources is definitely still in, tho... I made one 'ghost town' with some very creepy lighting effects. Moving through it, the colors would change slightly from tile to tile, as well... and this is beyond the fact that you have an equal array of colors to choose from when creating the area (both in terms of moonlight/sunlight color, fog color, ambient color, etc.)

I believe it is correct, however, that like other area properties it cannot be changed while the game is running. Again, these are my observations... some things may yet change, naturally, before release.

Wind: Yes, you can set a wind level when you make an area (right amongst the same selections as weather and ambient colors), so a stormy atmosphere is very possible.

It is a cosmetic effect only... it will cause hair, clothing and grass to ruffle (not sure about flames, personally). It would be cool if we had a long enough mesh to make a cloak that could fly in the wind... but no visible cloaks at this point, sorry.

Flint and tinder: Torches are automatically lit when used.

No flint & tinder. No lanterns (though that would be cool and is do-able... I guess we figured a torch was enough for now, tho.)

Factions: PC's don't belong to factions... the settings are how factions respond to them. NPC's always belong to one faction, but that faction can be changed through scripting (via the commands Golodhil listed).

Calling the PC's party a 'faction' is a bit of a misnomer, as it might make you think it's the same as the factions that the NPC's are part of... when it isn't, really.

"Use magic device" for rogues: Actually, no... Use Magic Device is in as a skill (and may not be used without ranks in it). It works approximately as the feat does, though I don't remember how failures are handled.

And remember: it works only on magical items that are 'activated'... not ones that work all the time, like magical weapons or armor.

Henchmen: Quote: Actually the easiest way would be to just cut and paste the scripts from the henchmen in the official campaign or perhaps the game will ship with a "henchman" script all ready to go which is very likely.

This is correct. The scripts required aren't all that complex... that 'state' of being a henchman is hard-coded and just needs to be activated, and it can be applied to any creature.

If you wanted the Henchman to level up with you, however, you would at least have to make enough versions of its creature file. If not, then literally it could apply to anyone the module designer wished.

Weapon abilities: With many of the item properties, including the 'on hit' function, you have the option of assigning both a percentage chance of the property occuring as well as how often that property may be used.

Murder and witnesses: It depends on how you want to script it. Personally, I would give the guard a shout, too, so there's always a chance of his alarm being heard (as opposed to the act only seen).

Then there's the matter of disposing of his body, too. I'd have the guard drop an indestructable body item (or placeable object... although that would have to be handled a bit differently), and should the body be discovered by someone, it raises a hue and cry. Maybe script an alarmed guard to be on 'suspicious' mode for awhile, challenging anyone he sees... and then requiring a Persuade check (with a DC based on your current Reputation with the guards) to avoid being blamed for said murder?

Naturally it doesn't have to be that complex if you don't want it to, but even I could handle the scripting for the above (and I'm no expert).

Or are you wondering how it works in the official campaign? No set answer for that just yet... we're playing with several variations right now.

1) Factions are PC-specific. So if the thief in your party goes and kills somebody and starts some god-awful chain reaction across the district, the rest of the party is free to look the other way and whistle innocently while he gets drawn and quartered.

2) Killing any NPC will cause a -5 drop in your reputation with that faction, whether it is witnessed or not. How quickly this will lead someone to a hostile faction depends on where the original setting was placed. A friendly, peace-time city might have guards on a high-neutral PC faction setting of 80. A hostile, paranoid city might have guards on a very low-neutral PC faction setting of 15. Once the faction drops to 10, the faction as a whole is hostile.

3) A witness to your attack (it need not be a death... attacking a faction member will draw a reaction after the first hit) will react according to his relationship to that faction. Some factions are neutral to other members of their own faction... if anyone is Friendly to that faction, they will go hostile along with whoever you were targeting. When hostile they will also emit their 'shout'... drawing other friendly NPC's nearer to perhaps witness the attacks and cause a cascade-effect.

So... if you go into a home and kill someone, and there is nobody about to witness the deed or hear the shout, you will garner a small penalty to their faction (yes, from the suspicion and such that will be caused by the murder) but there will be no reaction beyond that.

If you attack someone in the street, you get the penalty to their faction. If there was a peasant and a guard nearby (both being friendly to the faction of the NPC you're attacking) both would go hostile along with whoever you were attacking. The peasant might run away, emitting his shout every heartbeat... anyone friendly to his faction would also go hostile along his route (if he is left alone). The guard (as a defender) would move to protect the person you were attacking... and his shout might draw other guards nearby (who would also go hostile), and so on and so forth.
You could run away, but you would retain the faction penalties.

The default I'm not sure of is how long the NPC's remain hostile... and whether or not they return to neutral once the PC is killed.

Either way, you can easily change how the default system works by adding scripts to the OnDeath() event in the creature, perhaps making faction hits more widespread if a survivor lives to 'tell the tale' or what-not.

Considering that faction relations are out of 100, a -5 deduction is not that much... and, as a default, relates to what people were saying about suspicion and so forth.

If you kill someone without a witness, there's bound to be some reaction and some suspicion that falls your way. With no witness, no, there's no hostile reaction to the character personally.

Without having a more complex system in like I mentioned in my first post, this is the default method of dealing with there being some kind of 'investigation'.

It would be very simple, as well, if you wanted to include specific places in the city (or wherever) where someone could be killed safely without any repercussion at all, if you wished. Simply add a +5 reaction to the faction on their OnDeath() event, and this cancels out the reduction.

Emotes: Emotes can be recognized and responded to, yes. So if the PC waves to someone, you could script them to wave back and initiate a dialogue... or tell the player off and use the aggressive animation if his rep was very low, or whatever.

Color of liquid: There is a Stream tile that you lay down which may be waded through (yes, it's about knee-deep). The regular Water tile is much deeper and may not be entered.

The color and transparency of the water is part of the tile's model and may not be changed without going into the model itself and changing it. You can go in and change the water to green or muddy if you wish (no idea on the complexity of that, personally), but it would require a hack-pak.

Black fog to make it pitch dark: Correct. Turn the fog up to maximum, set fog color to black and set both ambient light sources to color black and you've got a DARK environment. Believe me... they won't be seeing anything without some kind of light source. I've been in NWN enviroments that haven't gone to that extreme and I find them quite dark enough, thank you.

The reason the screenshots look relatively well-lit is that dark screenshots look pretty crappy.

PC interaction: Everybody sounds about right here. Nothing complex about it. Every PC can engage in a dialogue with an NPC, everybody can only engage in one dialogue at a time. You see dialogues that are occurring if you're in a position to overhear them.

So yes... if 64 players were online, they could have 64 different conversations at the same-time... so long as they were all with different NPC's.

(Personally, the ability of a party to split up and go their own way however they wish is what's most cool about the MP. When I'm in a party, someone will run off to buy equipment, another will go off to explore a sub-plot, a couple of us will stand about chatting with an NPC - the DM - or what have you. It's a lot of fun.)

Pits and Deadfalls: Pits are out in general. Nor did we script any in the official campaign.

Out of character chat controlled by the DM: While I'm not 100% certain, I haven't seen any evidence of this. I don't believe there's any way of preventing the players from speaking.

There is no 'chat' in terms of IRC-type chat, however, if that's what you mean (like in Dark Age of Camelot, where groups chat out-of-game amongst themselves). Players can speak, whisper and yell... and this is displayed on screen just as everyone else talks. If a character is talking OOC, then you'd have to treat him the same way you would someone speaking OOC in your PnP game.

It could be that not all the chat-type functions are implemented at this point, and keep in mind that some of the stuff I've mentioned may also change.

Derek French, Assistant Producer:

Tilesets: Here is the current list.

Castle Interior
City Exterior
City Interior
Crypt
Dungeon
Forest
Microset (basically a test tileset)
Mines and Caverns
Rural
Sewers

STANDARD WARNING: This could change, a tileset could be dropped, merged, mangled, etc, etc, so these are the tilesets at March 26th, 1:03 PM.

For tiles that are appropriate, there are both Good and Evil parts inside (Good castle, Evil castle).

In one area, you can only use one tileset.

Linux version NWN is programmed for: Currently we are developing and testing under Red Hat. We will expand testing out to other distros closer to release.

Items: All items in a module are considered "templates"

You can create "instances" of these items in your game on the fly, but you cannot create a brand new item from scratch.

Within the game, items are called by some kind of "ID" number indicating which item in the item list for the module they are (thus allowing you to create copies etc)

Not quite true. All items may be a template, but they are made of a number of base parts and properties. These are universal. You can paint down that template into your module, you can modify the template and add it to your palette as a new template and paint those down, or you can go and edit each painted item as it is separate. I know that is hard to picture/imagine/understand right now without seeing the Toolset, but trust me on it. Even that "ID" just references a set of base parts and properties.

Quote: With all of this being true... what on earth happens when a PC joins your server with an item that you DO NOT have in your item list!?!?!

The PC has the item. *goink* This is because the item is made of base parts and properties that is universal to every install of the game.

Quote: Obviously the item doesn't just disappear, and obviously it doesn't exist in your list of created items because you never created it.

See above. Nothing bad happens.

Quote: So that leaves me with lots of questions :
-When a player joins a server, are all their items checked and any item not belonging on the item list "added" a new templates?

Without going hardcore into the internal data handling of this situation, let's just say that nothing bad happens and everything works.

Quote: -If I can actually add to the item list on the fly when running a module (ie via a player joining with a new item) then why can't I script the creation of a brand new item to be added to the list in EXACTLY the same way?(/list-incomplete)

I understand that you are looking for a technical reason as to why there aren't item creation feats. There is a reason for it, but I don't know it. You cannot create on the fly because the internal operations of this are not as simple as you describe.

Character storage options: You can only select one storage option, not multiples or combinations.

Scripting languages: a). Can player typed text be captured for input by a script?

b). Can the script prevent the afformentioned text from being displayed normaly?
The reasoning for this is the possibiliity of scripting PC racial languages.
ie.
-capture a PC's text
-mute/hide/block/whatever the original text
-process it into reletive gibberish
-redisplay it as gibberish for the linguisticaly challanged

Short answer... no.
And to follow up, this kind of thing would be something that we would have to have in place in the game engine as opposed to scripting. It touches on too many different parts of the game for plain conversation.

There is no way through scripting to alter the text that someone types in the chat window. If you were looking for racial language scrambling (a la EQ) it would be something that WE would have to do in the game engine because it impacts so many different parts of the game's internals.

Can we script a text box to appear when talking to an NPC or something and capture text input from there?
No. There is no displayable text input box for conversation trees.

Carrying gold and items when switching servers: Yes, those items are stored on your character and will come across.

Jonathan Epp, Quality Assurance:

Lights to catch thieves: Yup, totally possible. Could be as simple as painting down a trigger, and when someone enters the trigger the light turns on. And there are other ways that you could do it too, depending on how exactly you wanted it to work.

Games in NWN: Yeah, in-game games can totally be done. I've done checkers, chess, othello, and Derrick's done chicken-pong and something he calls "Chickguins".

The scripting language is really powerful, and it allows you to do much, much more than your standard D&D stuff.

At this time they're two-person. AI is obviously a little bit tricky, especially for something like chess. At looked at it for a while, but I decided that it was too much work for me at the moment, as I'm spending all my time testing the 'real' game.

Also, while they technically work, I wouldn't want them on the cd unless they were polished (and that's assuming they'd put them on the cd anyway ). I will make some of these things available at some point though, one way or another.

Preston Watamaniuk, Designer:

Item Properties: Light: Does in fact refer to an item with a light source.
Bonus Feat: Grants a single chosen feat at the time of item creation within the toolset. The feat - as is the case with most item properties - comes into effect when the item is equipped.
Cast Spell: Allows you to build an item that can cast the chosen spell at a specific caster level. Spells can be applied to items and use charges or a specified number of times per day for activation.
Instead of Larloch's Drain we have something called Vampiric Regeneration which acts in much the same way.

A couple of things:
1. We have a list of On Hit properties that can be applied to weapons. For example On Hit: Sleep. The Cast Spell property on the other hand is actually casting the spell. You must stop attacking and activate the items ability to cast the spell.
2. There are many different types of items in the game, all of which have their own list of item properties that can be applied. For instance you cannot give Amulets an On Hit property.