On December 12, 2002, Neverwinter Stratics hosted the fifth Neverwinter Stratics House of Commons chat with BioWare and FloodGate Entertainment, the developers of Neverwinter Nights. The chat ran about an hour with BioWare and FloodGate wandering all over the map, covering questions on Shadows of Undrentide, file formats, ports, community projects, and more!
Attendees from BioWare & FloodGate:
Jay Watamaniuk, Community Manager (BioJay)
Darcy, Assistant Producer (BioDarcy)
Tom Ohle, Communications (BioTom)
Trent Oster, Producer on NWN (BioTrent)
Naomi Novik, Tech Lead & Designer from FloodGate (NaomiNovik)
Paul Neurath, Creative Director from FloodGate (pfn)
Rick Ernst, Lead Designer from FloodGate (speaking through NaomiNovik)
Paul Wrider, Designer from FloodGate (speaking through NaomiNovik)
Also in attendence, the always welcome humor and comraderie of the BioWare team, new with FloodGate!
The log may be edited for continuity regarding the questions and responses as needed.
attriel:
Greetings and thank you for attending tonight's House of Commons Chat.
Tonight's chat is focusing on Neverwinter Nights
I will be our moderator for this evening. In order to submit questions please /msg or /query [QT]Brannoc, [QT]Elm, or [QT]Kiir. Please /msg different question-takers at different times, in order to balance the load and speed this process up. Do not msg anyone from Dev. Team or myself. These questions will be ignored.
Remember that the Dev. Team may not have the opportunity to answer all of your questions. In addition, some questions may not be answered if the Dev Team feel that it is not appropriate or that it has been better answered through some other question.
In addition, please do not submit any questions that have already been answered during past conferences. We encourage you to read the logs of the previous House of Commons Chats, which are available at http://nwn.stratics.com/.
Please note that this chat is copyrighted and cannot be republished without the expressed consent of Neverwinter Stratics and the Stratics Network.
Thanks for coming, everyone. We will now begin accepting questions.
And now, the Developers will introduce themselves and tell us who they really are :)
BioTom:
Tom Ohle, Communications Associate at BioWare! Isn't that a fun title!?!?
BioJay:
Jay Watamaniuk, BioWare's Community Manager. I like pie.
BioDarcy:
Hello everyone, I'm Darcy, and i'll be playing the role of assistant producer.
i also like pie
BioTrent:
I'm Trent Oster, Project Director of NWN and future ...Stuff...
NaomiNovik:
Hi, Naomi Novik, tech lead & designer from Floodgate here -- Rick Ernst, lead designer, and Paul Wrider, fellow designer (he says to say monkey) are here with me. Wrider likes pie too.
pfn:
Paul Neurath, Creative Director at FloodGate Entertainment. I get to do all the fun bits ;)
attriel:
Well, that's the intro's, now the Questions!
Question from SoMF:
Is there going to be any plans in the near future to improve the logging features of the server? Example (archiving logs, not overwriting logs, turning logging off, etc)?
Response from BioTrent:
We are looking at improving the support for data logging and other forms of I/O in the near future.
Question from Eric:
what was the most limiting technological aspect of NWN? In other words, what necessary technology was most constraining due to speed issues and such? AI, pathfinding, model rendering?
Response from BioTrent:
The most limiting technology by far was the rules implementation. The sheer data the game has to go tthrough is shocking.
From a performance standpoint I'd say pathfinding though.
Question from Daryl_Knight:
For Multiplayer, I was wondering if the new character feats would be available to everyone, regardless if they had the expansion or not, in order for all characters to be able to play together.
Response from BioDarcy:
New character feats will not be avalible to everyone, just on servers who support Xp1
Response from NaomiNovik:
Just to clarify on the XP1 feats question --
If you have XP1 feats, you can play on non-XP1 servers with non-XP1 players
and your XP1 feats will work properly, and the other players will be able to see the effects of the feats, etc
but those other players will not be able to take the XP1 feats (or spells, too) themselves if they don't have the expansion.
Question from RedR:
Any chance of BioWare hosting a rankings page for community released content?
Response from BioJay:
Got it- just a sec.
One of the original ideas for the community site was to have some sort of ranking system for modules but time was a bit of an issue. :)
What we are doing right now is developing a road map of projects and estimates on the time for release on the stuff we have planned coming up.
Rankings would be great to have but has been moved aside a bit in favor of other projects such as the Guilds system and so on. We would like to revisit it however.
Question from CellKill:
Is there a way to stop the server from deleting .nwnpid when it crashes? Or is this a problem with some crashes?
Response from BioTrent:
Sadly, many files are held open while the game is performing an operation on them. If the server hammers in while the file is open, the OS pretty much trashes the file
We can't do much about it, but we are always working to reduce the frequency of "hammering in"
Question from auroris:
Greetings from Augustana University! Would it be possible to release rough file format guidelines for the aurora engine on an as-is no-support basis for us programmers trying to create editors and other content for the game? Some file formats are really mysterious still.
Response from BioTrent:
Greetings back.
Many of the file formats are a mystery to us as well, even though we created them
A good rule of thumb is 2Da's usually don't kill things, but any other file can take the game down hard
Question from TinWork:
any estimates on when the Linux Client will be released?
Response from BioJay:
Ah yes, the Linux Client. Some schedule wierdness did a number on our original estimation of release date but
I can assure you I am whipping the programmers with a large pool noodle everyday as we get a LOT of Qs about Linux
You folks are probably the most vocal of any group. We hear you- that's for sure. :)
Question from GH|Snowman:
iwas wondering if they have any opinion on what gamehosts.net is doing for the community with the free servers they are giving away?
Response from BioJay:
Apart from being really nice folks I would expect it has to do with boosting their company in the public eye but I can't speak for another company.
I think it's amazing actually- a great boost to the community.
Response from BioTrent:
I'm a big fan
Response from BioTom:
It's just awesome to see other companies helping out communities with very little (monetarily) to gain
Question from Blacksting:
Is there any chance that the number of choices for item/weapon parts will be upped from 9? If not can the baseitems.2da separate the Item Class reference from the model reference so new baseitem entries can access feats?
Response from BioTrent:
This section of the game is quitte complicated.
In the future we will be revisting the maximum number of colors available
Question from Blacksting:
There was one brief mention of the Tileset Documentation being released.... is such a thing going to occur?
Response from BioJay:
The Tileset documentation should be released pretty darn quick actually.
There are a couple of things we wanted to get added (an emitter example) before it went out. And a few text changes.
Question from Omnipa:
Huzzah to you all, and thanks for this chance to get a Face Off. Do y'all have any plans to make DM required style modules?
Response from BioDarcy:
Huzzah to you too. We do not plan to make any DM required style modules. We need to keep in mind that some of the people who have NWN do not play online...
So we design our adventures in the expansion packs to meet a wide audienc.
Response from BioTom:
just as a note...
the Witch's Wake series is definitely a step in that direction.
the DM guide for it was released with it
And Rob Bartel designed the module from the ground up to be compatible with a DM... or without!
Question from Steel_Wind:
Plt plug-in - Yes or No?
Response from BioTrent:
We've been talking about the PLT (Packed Layered Textures) tools and we are just searching through the issues involved. *IF* there are no legal (sigh) or other issues we are thinking about inflicting some more ugly internal only tools on you, the happless mod community
The PLT format is the stuff that makes children tremble though, so be wary of what you ask for
Question from NWC_garnak:
Is there any chance that one of the upcoming official modules will be written in a duplicate form for Dming? I mean to say, in a format akin to a standard D&D module, with no scripted conversations and a document describing its utilization?
Response from NaomiNovik:
Garnak -- our campaign is going to be designed for play without a DM, for the same reasons as Darcy mentioned, but of course any module can be run with a DM.
If you'd like to try doing this, we'd suggest that the DM play through once or twice to learn the module, then strip out the conversations so he or she can handle them as they wish.
Question from Daryl_Knight:
In Multiplayer, emote wands appear to be popular amoung social servers, but require a script and a special wand to be used. I noticed that the Witch's Wake also uses this wand, any chance of these additional emotes being added to the emote section on the radial menu so everyone can use them, regardless of the module?
Response from BioTrent:
In order to get the game done in a timely manner a *few* things *may* have been hardcoded, *cough*, like the radial menu.
We are aware of how much it would add to the game to better support emotes in the game and we are looking into making the radial more flexible
and adding support for additional control options.
Question from H2orat:
I would like to know the status on the Mac Server. Any ETA???
Response from BioJay:
The following statement was made today in a meeting: "Mac is looking very good indeed"
We want to show it off early in the new year and so we are getting very close to starting some serious testing.
I believe it was actually "wow, the Mac is looking great"
There are a few issues remaing but they are being looked at. Hopefully nothing strange will pop up.
Question from Akenthi:
any talk of the Database reading and Writeing? can you say anything as to some of the options your looking in to?
Response from BioTrent:
Database: read+Write = goodness
Database support is something we **really** want
Still under consideration of course
You know how development can go ;-I
Response from BioJay:
The databse or file access issue is a very clear issue in the community and is very firmly on the radar.
It would solve a great deal of wierdness for Persistant Worlds. Derek French has a special place in his heart for this one-so don't worry. :)
Question from Lestat:
Are there any plans for expansion - especially with higher levels or perhaps Torment type worlds?
Response from BioDarcy:
We are thinking of using epic levels in the 2nd expansion pack. We want to really bash and kill things fast. :-)
Question from Steel_Wind:
Community Expansion Pack - Good Idea or Bad Idea?
Response from BioJay:
Great idea of course. I would heed Derek's caution about altering .bifs however.
I was always harping about the talent in the community getting together to create something huge.
Now it's happening- excellent. There are a few legal things we need to figure out first from our end however.
Response from BioTom:
yeah... stay away from the bifs. they're evil.
Question from Rizogue:
Since we're talking about the expansion, can we expect some new hints tonight on details of some of the new features that haven't been previously discussed, like the tilesets, etc?
Response from NaomiNovik:
Rizogue -- yes.
NaomiNovik returns to the issue:
Okay, back to Rizogue -- we were figuring out what we're allowed to tell you.
We're introducing three new tilesets in XP1 -- rural winter, desert, and ruins.
I'm getting to use ruins in chapter 3, which is what I'm designing, and it's so cool.
Response from BioTrent:
The Female fire giant is hot!
I'm a HUGE desert tileset fan
Response from BioDarcy:
the desert tileset is hot too
And then NaomiNovik gave us some special insights:
Also...
we're going to sneak this bit of information out here..
we'll be adding over 40 new spells and over 30 new feats in XP1
okay, that's all we're telling you for now.
This leak was met with screams of anguish from the BioWare team :)
Question from NeverLearner:
What is Bioware doing to make NWN more PersistentWorld-friendly? Specifically are we going to see a better ability for server/game operators to save quest, faction, and tradeskill settings being saved with chars over reboots?
Response from BioTrent:
We are looking into ways to improve everything from Hak pack support to persistent world features
The real limiting factor is team time.
We have a limited pool of resources and we try to go for the biggest bang feature wise.
Question from H2orat:
I read that you were working on a way to allow BINK cutscenes to be called from the game for Floodgate? Will this be something that the community could access to in the XP? No better way to drive an ongoing epic module.
Response from BioTrent:
Actually, you can call cutscenes from scripting, we just do it at the end of modules.
The problem is the gamestate cannot change while a movie is playing as it sucks up the resources of the system
We don't have support for calling them at any time
But just wait until you see Floodgates movies!
Question from NwC_Omnipa:
We are always asking for things from you, If you each could set one goal for the NwCommunity in the coming year, what would it be and do you have any thoughts on how it could get done?
Response from BioJay:
One goal for the community?
Hmmm...good question. As mentioned the creating something huge through working as a team was my big goal for the community but now...
I want to see us surpassed. It's kind of like a dare. "You have the tools...now do better."
...and more pirate ships! Yarrr!
Response from BioDarcy:
and pie
Response from NaomiNovik:
Wrider wants the community to send him pie.
Response from BioTrent:
I'd love to see the NWN mod scene equivalent of Counterstrike for Halflife, something which takes the game in a new direction
and goes far beyond the original design of the game
pie is good too
Question from Steel_Wind:
Animations: Interactive IK only - or did you use something else as well?
Response from BioTrent:
We used a variety of animation techniques for the game
everything from IK to normal by hand keyframing
I'd advise pick what works for you and keep practicing on it
Question from inoe:
What type of pie is your favorite?
Response from BioTrent:
I'm a huge Apple pie fan. In fact I think Darcy just decided to treat me to a slice for bringing up the notion of pie
Response from BioDarcy:
No chance
I like ice cream pie
Response from NaomiNovik:
Rick Ernst says: sour cream apple walnut
which I think sounds icky
Wrider likes dire pie.
Larger and more savage than regular pie.
Even if you have to pick out the bony plates.
NaomiNovik
likes pecan pie
Response from BioJay:
Pumpkin baby, all about the pumpkin. :)
Response from BioTom:
warm apple pie. and nooooooo....... I didn't get any ideas from American Pie
attriel:
And that's it for today folks!
Thanks to BioWare for coming!
BioTrent:
Thanks for coming out everyone. Good to see some familiar faces (or nicks) as the case may be
Goodbye all
BioTom:
We've got some hot stuff coming down the pipe... should be fun :)
BioDarcy:
Thanks for the invite. My first time in a HoC chat.
Be sure to stop by #neverwinter to discuss this with your fellow enthusiasts (and maybe some of the BioWare and FloodGate folks'll drop by on occasion)!
Please note that this chat is copyrighted and cannot be republished without the expressed consent of Neverwinter Stratics and the Stratics Network.
And then things started to break down as everyone left to go find some pie ...
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