NWN Forum Update

Remove all ads!

(Originally posted by Z-Layrex)

Derek French, Assistant Producer

Will I be able to shoot arrows from windows in buildings? No, as "inside" and "outside" are different areas and you cannot see between them.

Will playing NWN through Gamespy use any spyware on my PC? What we are talking about, is the GameSpy matching servers that Neverwinter Nights will talk to. When you are running Neverwinter Nights and you ask for a server list of public running servers, the Neverwinter Nights game will be talking to the GameSpy matching servers and getting the server list from them. There are no ads here, nor is this even possible to happen. We are in control of the conversations between programs here.
We are NOT talking about GameSpyArcade, an enternal application that in the past has included spyware. With version 1.09 this is not the case anymore. This program includes ads for the free version.
The OPTION to install GameSpyArcade 1.09 is included, but this is NOT required to run and play Neverwinter Nights. I have made a pass through GameSpyArcade 1.09 and there is no spyware that comes in this version. Verified by AdAware.

David Gaider, Designer

Are there rust monsters in NWN that damage metallic items? If not, could I make one? There are no rust monsters in NWN. If you were to put some in (I think I saw a pretty grand rust monster model by Polyhedral) the problem then becomes doing their rust effect properly.
Main issue there: is an item made of metal or not? No items have a property that determines what they are made of. If a player hits it with a weapon, do you make it save vs. rust or not? If the rust monster hits a player, does his armor rust or not?
A couple of possibilities:
- for weapons, you could detect the base item class of the weapon being used. Clubs and staffs could probably be safely excluded, for instance, while most other weapons have enough of a metal component that turning them into a 'dust' item on a failed save would be appropriate.
- for armor, it's trickier. The base item type of armor is just BASE_ITEM_TYPE_ARMOR. It doesn't divide up into leather or hide or chain or whatever. Worse, the armor value of that item isn't recoverable, even.
If you wanted to do it, my suggestion would be to use the armor tags to your advantage. Make sure all of your armor tags include the armor type within them, with the same number of characters on either (or both) side...
... then you could use the GetSubString commands to extract the armor type. So let's say a piece of leather armor had a tag of "NW_LEATHER_01"... you could remove the first three and last three characters and see what string you were left with. Result = LEATHER? Ok, no effect.
Only problem there is armor items coming from outside your module. You might decide to just be cruel and say on a default it affects everything... up to you.
It's either that or you're going to have to dig up something funky in a 2DA somewhere. I can't picture it, myself.
Still... the actual 'replace with dust item' effect would be quite easily done. Place the script in the OnDamaged script of the rust monster... check if the last damager was in melee, see what weapon he's using and run your check. Bingo.

Bob McCabe, Assistant Producer

Will high level characters work well with the single player game of NWN? We have two separate testing teams for the purpose of playing the game. One plays through legitimately - starts out at level 1 and plays like a regular player. The other team starts out with a lvl 20 multi-classed character who can do every single plot. This second team doesn't fight anything but the boss-type monsters, uses boots of haste, and basically runs through as fast as they can to ensure that the plots are functioning and can be worked in every possible direction.
As such, and as I am a member of the second team, I have indeed played through the game with a high-level character. And though the game is indeed scalable, we have, for the purpose of the single player campaign, limited as one might limit a D&D module - for example, suggested for characters levels 1-4.
This means that whereas an encounter COULD BE made up of anything from a goblin to a half-dozen flesh golems, dependant upon the level and number of PCs, we have limited it to anything from a solitary weak goblin to a half-dozen elite goblins.
Now, if you're playing through with ten level 20 characters, you're probably still going to blow through the encounters fairly easily. We could have removed these limits, but then things begin to make less sense.
Oh great hero, will you adventure to the far side of town to fetch me a pail of water? There might be a few hundred fire giants (each holding hundreds of GPs of equipment) in your path, but if you return with the pail, I will gladly pay you 3 gold!
D&D has it right here to set limits for their stories. And we're just trying to do the same thing. And just like D&D, you can change this to make our low-level module a very high-level module, if you wish.