Neverwinter Nights Forum Update

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(Originally posted by Z-Layrex)

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Witch Wake Release Date: No, it is not going to be part of a patch, it will be a separate download. It was never scheduled to be part of any patch. The current theory for the release is Dec 11th.

X-Pack CDs: The paper sleave thing caught us off guard, as well as the poor clarity of the CD Key printing. We will definately be working to make sure neither of these things happen again.

RAAAAAR! (<- angry at paper sleaves)

Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager

Using Fan Created Content In X-Packs: There are a few issues that create difficulties in directly using community content. It's not much of a legal thing but more of having to go through an entire QA pass on the OC if we wanted to use the Henchmen AI upgrade for ex maple as it is a fundamental change to the game. A full QA is a very large deal as it involves using every class, race, spell, monster and so on over the entire course of the OC. It becomes a matter of what is the best use of QA and programmer time. Improve Henchmen AI in the OC or fix and test crash bugs? This is a pretty specific response, but does encompass some of the reasons for shying away from direct inclusion of community stuff. That is not to say we don't use community stuff, as in the case of a group of spell fixes that were implemented which originally sprang from the community. As has been mentioned the Henchmen AI is being reworked for the expansion and I'm pretty sure those programmers involved will will have taken a look at what the community has put together before they get started.

Darcy Pajak , Assistant Producer

X-Pack Compatibility: We are still working out the technical requirements, but the original plan is that you would only need the specific expansion pack to play on a module created with that expansion pack, very much like Torias mentions. That being said, if this becomes to difficult to manage effectively we may switch to another strategy. Being from EA, I would be more then happy to follow the Sim?s model. But that may not be feasible with NWN. Lucky I have Derek French and Jay Watamaniuk, who work closely with the community and know what they want.

X-Pack Content: This expansion will be great! In the single player game, you will have new places to go, new people to talk to, more treasure to acquire, more feats to use, more spells to cast, and different monsters to fight. The tool set adds more functionality, to make it easier to create modules so we are hoping to see even more community created content down the road. Someone asked why we don't bundle all the great stuff created by the community ourselves? I would really love to see the best stuff the community has to offer used by everyone, and the people who created it get recognized for their work. However, there are many legal and procedural hurdles we would need to clear before this is done. I don?t want to debate this point, so I?ll just say:

There are no current plans to use community content in the expansion packs.

Expansion Content:

Quote: I was just wondering if the decisions have already been made about exactly what is being added to both expansions or whether there is a likelihood of anything suggested on these forums being included if there seems to be enough support for it and the constraints are not too great?

Yes, the decisions have already been made to what will be in the expansions. Before we began, we first looked at what the community was currently doing with Neverwinter, and what they wanted to do with it. We also looked at what we wanted to do with it. We took all that information and then analyzed what was possible. We also took the current market conditions and our user demographics into account and picked a feature set and built a plan and signed a contract. I want to iterate that the vast majority of the content was chosen by what the community was discussing on the forums, every once in a while there were posts of wish lists and ideas, and we took those seriously.

Of course as the community matures, what is wanted changes and we also took that into account, but there has to be a point when we need to stop adding things so the developers can get on with making the game. I know that we are making great expansions. If you also include the Live Team and all that they are doing, Neverwinter will be around for a long time, and will be constantly built up to support the people who own and play it.

More:
Over the next few weeks [we'll be releasing information on what's in the x-packs]. We need to consider how to present the information, for example we would like to include screenshots, but those take time for approval by FloodGate, Infogrames, Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast and us.

And More:

Quote: Darcy - what I really want to know, is there going to be support for user made prestige classes, feats, spells, etc? This is pretty important. Lots of us are working these things out the hard way, and if that's going to be taken care of I'd rather not. And if it's not, well, I'd like to know that too so I can make alternative plans. Thanks a lot.

It is too difficult to add support for user made prestige classes in the time we have to release both expansion packs. (Changing GUI, Animations, etc) Also if we made it possible for the user's to created their own prestige classes, there is the risk that some may unbalance the game, some people may exploit them, and this may damage the multiplayer game.

Don Moar, Tools Programmer

Plot Wizard: The Plot Wizard is designed to help module creators prepare _new_ plots and the required object blueprints, conversations and scripts. The objects may be plot givers, villains or extras as dictated by the specific needs of your plot. The Plot Wizard will not interfere with or use any existing blueprints, conversations or scripts in your module. In general, this means that if you try to use the same object in more than one plot, the Plot Wizard will create another copy of the blueprint for the new plot. This isolation greatly simplifies the implementation and reduces the risk of a module designer inadvertantly removing important resources when deleting a plot. It is still possible for the same object to be reused in multiple plots, but it does require a little manual intervention on the part of the module designer to merge conversations and such. Fortunately, the conversations generated by the Plot Wizard are designed to be fairly simple in their structure. Keep in mind that these conversations can still be edited and otherwise enhanced using the Conversation Editor so long as you obey a few simple rules. (Check out the tutorial for an example of how to do this.)