Neverwinter Nights Forum Update

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(Originally posted by Z-Layrex)

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

Plot Wizard: You're on the right track. Epilogue nodes like the ones they describe in the tutorial are deal with the situation where the NPC has served their function in the plot, but the PC comes back for more. In your case, you would create an epilogue node for the plot giver that is dependent upon the node where the plot giver gives the PC the box. In this node, you can have the NPC encourage the PC to hurry or question them about their progress - it's up to you, really.

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That is the "Out of Plot" greeting. Basically, it's what the NPC would say if the PC spoke with him or her before the PC was involved in the plot. For example, if during the game, the PC were to speak with the extra in your plot before receiving the plot, the NPC would say there "Out of Plot" greeting.

Plot Manager: The Plot Manager allows you to organize plots not created by the Plot Wizard. With the Plot Manager you can take plots that you've already created and organize the blueprints into Plot Giver, Villain, Extras, etc. It's a little more convenient that having to hunt through all the palettes for each of the blueprints individually.

Multiple Quests: Yes, it is possible for the same NPC to issue multiple quests one after the other.

Either you:

1. string all the quests into a single Plot Wizard plot (easy)

or

2. create each plot individually (this will result in multiple versions of the NPC) using the Plot Wizard and then manually combine the different conversation files generated (hard).

The problem with the first option is that it becomes a little tougher to manage all the nodes. The problem with the second option is that manually editing the conversation files is a little error prone.

Jonathan Epp, Quality Assurance

Tokens In Journals: We were going to add the ability to use custom tokens in journal entries with 1.27, but unfortunately we had a problem with it so it didn't make it in. And then we goofed and didn't take it out of the patch notes. Sorry for the confusion! We still plan on having it in an upcoming patch though.

Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager

Patch 1.28: We are hoping to have a patch before everyone takes the Xmas break. If not then very early in Jan.

Tom Ohle, Communications Assistant

Cost & Release Of The SoU X-Pack: As was mentioned in another thread, we do not have a price for SoU yet. EBGames likely just made that price up. They also have a release date--which came as a shock to everyone involved in the project. "I didn't know that we knew the exact day it was going to come out. It's at EB, though, so it must be true."

Brent Knowles, Co Lead Designer

X-Packs: A 40 hr campaign takes a *LOT* of work. Floodgate will be working very hard to complete their campaign and I don't envy the long hours they'll have to put in. XP1 is doing far more than simply running interference for XP2! They are constantly requesting new features and functionality, all of which will benefit the module building community. As well, many of the scripting/functionality requests that those of us on XP2 are making will also be incorporated into XP1 (such as improved cutscene functionality).

Noel Borstad, Programmer

Custom Text:

Quote: What we REALLY need is the ability to tie custom phrases to the Hot Keys (Fireball coming - hold back! or maybe my old Hot Key from EQ: "I'm being attacked! If you want me around to heal you, GET 'IM OFF ME! GET 'IM OFF ME!!!")

This is already in... use the "Custom Text Macro" with whatever you want to say in the "Input Command". By default it will do a shout, so for role playing purposes you might want to prefix it with /tk to talk normally. The custom macros are great for DMs because if they prefix the string with ## it will get sent to the console.
This is handy for being able to trigger custom scripts from the quickbar (ie. ##runscript killallplayers )
or when you're trying to rapidly level up a character, turn on DebugMode, then put ##dm_levelup on your quickbar. Every time you hit that key you go up a level! oops. sorry for hijacking your thread with my rambling!

Trent Oster, Producer

Attacks of Opportunity: The Attacks of Opportunity rules in NWN are keyed from your difficulty setting. If you are playing on easy difficulty the enemies do not get attacks of opportunity.

Character Models: During development we had a Max script which generated the racial variants from a human base model. There were a series of data files you had to hand edit to set the proportions. We also went back after the scripts and hand edited anything that looked too wonky. I'll see if I can find that system anywhere.

Neil Flynn, Programmer

Conversations: The Loop check box below where you select the animation is supposed to take care of that. I just checked and it doesn't. We are checking that out now.

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OBJECT_SELF will always be the owner of the conversation, regardless of the node. You will have to do a GetObjectByTag to get the 2nd NPC in the conversation.

Exporting In The Plot Wizard: That was changed in the wizard after the tutorial was written. Now, to export just save it as usual, but save it as a plot template file instead of a plot manager file. The rest of it should behave as stated. The tutorial will be updated as soon as we can. Sorry about the confusion.

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Tileset Builder: Actually, the Live Team is working on something comprehensive like this. Guess you will just have to check back with us next Neverwinter Wednesday.

Bug Reports: Hi there. We have only recently been made aware that our auto-responders have stopped working. That is why you have not heard anything back from us. Apparently then have been missing for a few months now, even though we have been updating their content on a regular basis. Its not like we e-mail ourselves bug reports very often.

The autoresponders say that we will not be contacting you unless we need more information from you, specifically. In many cases, you may be reporting a duplicate issue that we are already dealing with someone else, thus we don't need to ask you for that information. On a related note, we have completed an internal remote access security pass on the code, and we are very confident that the reports of the changing of server settings are not coming from external sources, but might actually be some sort of internal server problem.

We understand and sympathize with your frustrations. It causes us no end of grief, too, knowing that our customers are having a bad experience with our game. The Live Team (I almost typed Love Team :O ) reads and investigates every single e-mail to the three e-mail addresses and they will be addressed. We just cannot make any promises as to when, due to so many developmental factors.

Darcy Pajak, Assistant Producer

Robes & Cloaks: Hello everyone, there has been a lot of interest about having Robes, and Cloaks in the upcoming expansion packs. Our approach with NWN has always been to implement features completely and in a quality manner. If we judge either element lacking in a feature we do not attempt that feature. We had a meeting yesterday with FloodGate to discuss the viability of cloaks and robes. We discussed the quality we wanted to set for cloaks and robes and re-examined the resources and cost associated with implementing this feature, we weighed all the options and found we did not have the resources needed to implement robes and cloaks to the quality we require for Shadows of Undrentide, or the second expansion pack. We are confidant that the current set feature set will please NWN fans and enhance the original game in many ways.

Eastern Sub-Classes: To create a good introduction with eastern sub-classes, we would have to first create a story that took place in the east (or started in the west and went east like Marco Polo). Anyway, we would also have to create a whole new tile set for the culture. Rural, City exterior, City interior, sewers, Castle interior, Crypts, etc, etc. Also add new armor art, placableles. There were be a lot we would have to do to make this work right. I'm not saying we won't do this, but all I can speak of is SoU, and XP2, and neither of these are taking place in the far east.

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Quote: Wow, that reply felt like someone had just sliced my hopes in half with a vorpal sword, then chopped them up into small chunks, then grindeded them with a mace of crushing into a fine powder and feed them to the nearest dire rat . So there is apsolutely no chance of that then(unless you dicide that a 3rd expansion would involve oriental characters), no patches containing these classes, no option to custom make them on toolsets?

Sorry for slicing hopes, that was not my intention. I was looking for more of a bashing

At this point I cannot say there is no chance of adding these classes. Maybe they will be added later, maybe not. Maybe we will design a tool for the community to make their own, maybe not. NWN has been out for only about 6 months, and RPG's usually have a longer lifespan then other types of games We expect people to play NWN for a long time and the Live team will be there to support it. We cannot predict what will be done with the game a year from now. Even 6 months down the road is murky.

We can only be sure of three things right now:
1) we are doing two expansion packs. One of which being jointly done with the talented people at FloodGate, the feature set is known for each one, but we are not releasing details until we can support them will information and screen shots and such.

2) The community will always come up with things to build upon the NW experance.

3) If people keep playing and building modules, NWN will grow and be vastly greater then it already is now.

Subraces In The X-Pack: There will be no sub races specifically designed for the expansion packs. We don't see a huge need as the players can make up their own at the moment in the player creation screen.
(We know many sub-races have additional bonus and penalties, like sunlight vulnerability, which is what people who want sub-races really want to see added)

However, because some of these races suffer penalties in certain environments we don?t want to limit the user?s choices in any modules. (for example, if we made the Derro Dwarf sub-race, exactly how it is described in the Monster manual? then anybody who wanted to use it for 90% of the modules out there, would have to suffer the constitution loss when daylight hit them, or be limited to only play in underground modules.)

That's fine by us. The huge fans of the Derro say. However, as you know by now one of the areas we have for Shadows of Undrentide is a desert tile set. We cannot put in a Derro as someone would choose that race to play through the campaign, and this would detract from the campaign, as they would loose constitution, hit-points, and maybe die as the game doesn?t know when a player is in the shade or standing in the sunlight. To make sure everyone has fun, we won?t do that. So we cannot put in the Derro, or any other sub-race that has such problems. Now that doesn?t leave too many left, so we made the choice long ago that we would allow people to adjust the look of these races, but unless we could follow the 3rd addition rules very closely, that was where it would stop.

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I can only speak of the content for the first two expansion packs.
Q: Will we flesh out Sub-races?
A: No

Q: Why not?
A: Many reasons, see my post above for some of them.

Q: What about XP3?
A: There is no XP3 planned at the moment, but if these two expansion packs make us money, that would go a long way in us makeing a decision to make XP3.

Debate over. the Nay's have it.

New Sounds In X-Packs: Ah what the heck, we'll see what we can do about music and voice sets.

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I cannot say who will be doing the new music at the moment for contract reasons. (the contract has not been signed, so saying anything would be premature). I do know that FloodGate is adding new music, and could be adding new voice sets. I wanted to use Spadaux Ballet, or OMD

X-Pack CD-Keys: The current plan is to have a CD key for the expansion packs.

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Quote: No SecuROM crap, right Darcy? No SecuROM, say it with me... No SecuROM. CD Key good. SecuROM BAD!

From what I'm told SecurRom has done good things to increase the useablity of it's product, and reduce those few exceptions where the product was not compatible with someones HD, OS or whatever.

Cloaks & Robes In X-Pack: We're looking into the issue of robes and cloaks.

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Quote: Darcy, I love you

Whoa!!, down there Nizidramanii't, I?m not making any promises. Robes and Cloaks are not easy to implement them as people think. Although I have seen some user created mods with cloaks and robes, and for the most part they are good, I really dislike the clipping and the way they look during some fighting animations. For us to do it right, will take a person here a long time. We need to balance that time and cost against other things we want to put in. Tile sets, spells, monsters, weapons, feats, etc, etc. All we and FloodGate can do is look into the cost, and make the decision based on what will give us the biggest bang for the buck.

To put in another way:
Cloaks and Robes = $50
New spells = $2/ each
New monster = $5/ each
Tile sets = $35/ each
Wizards for toolset = $10
Prestige class = $5/ each
New weapons = $2 each
(do not take this as real cost ratios, I?m only using it to make a point)

We have $100 to make the expansion, how do we choose what gets in?
We look at what the community is using most of all, and what they want to have included. (Sometimes they tell us directly, sometimes it?s indirectly) We make our choices from there.
Because of the cost of robes and cloaks that feature would not even make it past the initial discussion phase, however because many people in the community want it, we put it for analysis.
Also consider this;
Cloaks and Robes only add a cosmetic improvement to the game, while the other features add more adventure options. This doesn?t make cloaks and robes any less valuable to the users, but as anything cosmetic it would be great at first, but then people would get bored and look for the new flavor of the month.

I hope that make some sense of how we go about deciding what gets in and what does not.

BTW:
Horses = $101
Swimming = $101
Climbing = $101
Sorry

New Content In X-Packs: Yes, There will be new groups, tiles, terrain, and placables to match the Desert, Ruin, and Snowy tilesets.

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Quote: Hey Syrsuro, hello Darcy. My question was in reference to tilesets we already have, (rural, dungeon, castle interior etc.) Will we see any additions in features and groups and terrain in these tilesets?

I understand, sorry about that. When deciding what to add to the expansions, we looked through the forums, we took note of polls NW vault posted, and asked around. During all that we found very few, people asking for more options in the current tile sets. Almost everyone wanted completely new tile sets. So I?m sorry to say there are no plans to add to the current tile base. However, the three new tile sets can expand the capabilities of builders by taking the adventures from the cold of winter, to the blistering heat of a desert. (which were overall the top new tiles requested.)

Cost Of X-Packs: There seems to be a lot of buzz over the cost of the first (and second) expansion packs. As of the time of this post, we have no word from Atari what the cost will be. Please don't jump to conclusions or make bold assumptions on anything unless you hear it from Atari, It is unproductive, and can make you look the fool if you are wrong. Wait until the official announcement is made, then go ahead and react to it however you want. (but try and be constructive if you disagree with it)

XP1 Features: Shadows of Undrentide is not just a 40h adventure. It's new monsters, new classes, new feats, spells, weapons, Tiles and all the current live features will also be added. The gang from FloodGate are doing a great job and I expect it too only add value to NW as a whole.

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I'm afraid I cannot give a lot of detail right now on specifics in the expansion. FloodGate and us are adding many new feats and skills, including great cleave, and dirty fighting for fighters. There will be new prestige classes and these classes with have spicific skills tied to them. We are adding many new spells including Bigby's weird assortment. The biggest expansion to the character classes besides the new ones will be adding a craft skill, so some player can make their own items. As far as monsters I can say that FloodGate and us are adding the basilisk, cockatrice, and many more.

Non-X-Pack Modules:

Quote: I wonder if it would be possible for BioWare to implement a system where you can check an option to save modules as Original NWN (warning if new content has been used so one can remove it), so that it would be possible to create modules for non-SoU users after SoU has been installed? Possibly also allowing you to chose the patch-level as well (1.10, 1.25, 1.27, etc.)? Bah, Who am I kidding.

The current plan is to enable a builder to choose which assets they want to use to build a module. OG, or SoU. If it works (and we haven't tested it yet), then people with SoU can make modules for people without SoU.

SoU Content: What exactly is the question here? At the moment people are making modules and mods, and hak packs for general distrubution. I don't see that changing after SoU is released. The only diffrence is that modules made with SoU content can only be played by people with SoU installed. If someone wants to extract the female fire giant FloodGate created and put it into a hak pack for a Module to be used by owners of both SoU, and NW, that would be cheating.

Robin Mayne, BioWare Webmaster

Sub-races: Hey all - just wanted to let you know that I too had this same idea the other day, and I have chatted with Derek about the idea of a 'builder-controlled' drop-down for Sub-race and Diety during character creation. We will continue to examine the feasibility of adding this type of functionality in the future, but as it stands, I believe the hurdle that prevents this type of functionality is that the module is not yet loaded on the client's system when they are creating a new character. Therefore the current system does not allow for the module to provide info on character options as the player is not yet connected to the game.

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Quote: Use a drop-down with a hard coded list, and enable additional dieties, sub-races, whatever, to be loaded from the INI file. It's easy enough to edit / add to ASCII if you're planning on joining a PW.

I think the 'ideal' functionality that is being discussed in this thread would be a system that allows module builders to control Dieties/Sub-races using the toolset that automatically populates diety/subrace options for players when they play. Anything that requires players to do something outside of the game is no better than the current system of having players view a readme or web site with the list of supported Deities/Races. It can never be 'easy enough' when you want to design a system for everyone to use.