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WHEN: Thursday, June 7th, 2001

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• A new article, titled Evolution of an Online Gaming Guild, has been submitted for publication by Brimstone and is now on the site. It can be found in our Library, in the Articles section. It is a good read if you are thinking about or have run an online guild.


• For those of you requesting more information about our now infamous IRC D&D Games, we have added the Game Guidelines - these cover how the games work and the rules that govern them and the Game FAQ - which covers all you need to know about getting into a session and using the tools involved. These documents have a permanent place in the Community section of our menu, under IRC D&D Games.


• For our Glendenmoor fans, we are pleased to add two new documents that will help you delve a little deeper into the developing town of Glendenmoor.
  • The Currency page introduces the coins used in the city and includes a bit of information about each type of coin.
  • The Timeline page covers quite a bit of information about the timeline of the Forgotten Realms and shows you where Glendenmoor fits in the greater scheme of things.

Is it true that Neverwinter Nights has been pushed back to March 2002?

I read that at the ebgames homepage...

Andreas

Sorry, but the truth is that retails stores can publish and chance any release date they want. They simply don't know, short of when the boxes of games show up at the receiving door. There is still no release date for Neverwinter Nights at this time. Any dates you see are fabrications of the stores. Heck, they have to print SOMETHING.

We are not as restricted by our publisher as other development houses. While some publishers can hold a development house hostage by witholding funding, we have no such problems with Interplay. We won't release a game for publishing until we are satisfied that it is bug free. While we are mindful of sales numbers and timeframes, we won't trade off cash for quality.

And as a side note: most initial CD duplication runs are in the range of 10,000 to 100,000 copies, depending on the nature of the game, plus the number of CDs in each copy.

That being said, we are still targetting a winter release for Neverwinter Nights. (A "winter" for "Neverwinter"... irony?)

Derek French
Assistant Producer
BioWare

For Best PC Game:

The nominess are:
- Max Payne
- Medal of Honor Allied
- Neverwinter Nights
- Return to Castle Wolfenstein
- Star Wars Galaxies

For Best Role Playing Game:

The nominees are:
- Dungeon Siege
- Final Fantasy X
- Neverwinter Nights
- Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic
- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

For Best Online Multiplayer Game:

The nominees are:
- Anarchy Online
- Neverwinter Nights
- PlanetSide
- Star Wars Galaxies
- The Sims Online

Have you ever wanted to try your hand at designing a game and immortalize your character within the official game release of Neverwinter Nights? How, you may ask? Simply submit your original NPC into Designer for a Day Contest and thousands could meet your character in Neverwinter Nights!

It's a cliché, but I have to say it--Neverwinter Nights may well be the next evolution in CRPGs--making them exactly like their pen and paper cousins.

Neverwinter Nights is an ambitious project that's been more than four years in the making at BioWare, the developer of the acclaimed Baldur's Gate role-playing series. The developer hopes that its next product will bridge the gap between computer and pen-and-paper role-playing games. It's true that Neverwinter Nights will feature a comprehensive single-player game that uses Wizards of the Coast's/TSR's updated 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons rules. However, it'll also feature a powerful set of tools that will let would-be dungeon masters create their own virtual dungeons and then host online game sessions with players all over the world.
Though it's uncertain whether Neverwinter Nights will meet its projected release date this fall, it's clear that when it is released, it'll be as powerful a utility as it claims to be. We watched a demonstration of the latest build of the game at E3 and came away impressed by the power and versatility of the game's dungeon editor. Neverwinter Nights will let you quickly and easily lay out any kind of adventuring area using an intuitive interface that resembles Microsoft's Windows operating system. In fact, at the demonstration we watched, BioWare's staff laid out a simple but functional and fully populated dungeon in about 20 minutes, complete with a distinctive texture set, enemy monsters, and magical treasure. Neverwinter Nights will also feature a huge library of textures and character models that dungeon masters can use to build their very own adventure areas, including dank catacombs, bustling cities, brightly lit outdoor areas, and more. It'll also feature a somewhat challenging but exceptionally powerful scripting language that will let you create and customize literally millions of different combinations for player characters and nonplayer characters, monsters, armor, and weapons. And thanks to the game's modular design, if you create a custom item or character that you're especially proud of, you'll be able to upload it to the Internet so that other dungeon masters can download it and drop it right into their own dungeons.

Anyone who's followed Neverwinter Nights' progress knows just how ambitious the game is. What's most impressive about the game is that, judging from what's been shown, it may well realize its own ambition--and if it does, it'll change computer role-playing games forever.

There's something almost heartwarming about the days when you and some friends could slay dragons, discover treasure, fight armies and wield godly powers. As RPGs have matured, though, they've always ignored that key part of the universe. Neverwinter Nights breaks from the traditional single player world of AD&D, creating an exciting new online realm. The dynamic dungeon master role is a truly unique experience - and one that promises to be a torch-bearer for the genre. Plant evil denizens to thwart your guests! Take control of your creatures! Dynamically change the adventure on a whim! At last, here's your chance to shape an experience unlike any the gaming world has seen. With a simple editor where your most bizarre or nightmarish dungeons can come to life, and a beautiful engine to realize those visions, Neverwinter Nights looks set to take the rich and wholesome elements of an RPG to the online realm in classic fashion. Meanwhile, new spells, monsters and a strong story develop the offline element just as strongly. Neverwinter Nights may just be poised to take the role-playing world to new heights.

Neverwinter Nights is shaping up to be one of the finest role playing games of the year, boasting a powerful 3D game engine as well as a rich game world set in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons universe. As with most of BioWare’s games, Neverwinter Nights is rich with content, and should really shape up to be one of the coolest Advanced Dungeons and Dragons licensed RPG’s to date.

Most Impressive Game 4 of 5 votes for Neverwinter Nights.

Here is a comment from Windaria:

Oh man, take my breath away, put a second wedding ring on my finger, something... I ended up nailing two showings of this at E3; one with Bioware, and another in a private closed-off section of Interplay. Man, each time I was more and more impressed... the possibilities with this game are endless, heck... theoretically you could even put up an MMORPG based off it if you could string together enough servers. That and the ability to play as a Dungeon Master, the possibilities are endless, I think I'm in love... all over again. Needless to say, I've already started designing an entire world, and am working on terrain, town layouts, and dialogue trees on paper so that when the game lands on my desk I will have a lot of the footwork done. Bioware, please ship soon, it looks incredible (but wait if it means it will be a better product).

Coolest Company: Hands down to BioWare with 4 of the 4 votes in this category.

Here are Nordramor's feelings on the issue:

Hands down, Bioware was the most friendly, most outgoing, and most laid-back of all the companies at E3. Despite having to demo both Neverwinter Nights and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic running in two different rooms on opposite sides of E3, Bioware somehow managed to impress us every time we talked to them. Its not often that you get to both sit down to a closed door demo of a huge game like Neverwinter Nights and have one of the developers ask if anyone wants a beer during the demo. It's not just that they were so nice to the huge industry buffs all around us; it's that they were nice to just about everybody. There were several other nice companies, including several very cool people at the Gathering of Developers (Devin Winterbottom and Triumph Studios), Bethesda, and Infogrames, but Bioware came out of nowhere to snag the lead. Thanks for the free beer, and keep up the good work.

Best PC Game of Show - Runner-Up
Best PC Roleplaying Game of Show
Best PC Presentation of Show - Runner-Up

We current have quite a nice group going (about 100 members) for the Massive Multiplayer Roll Playing Community. This group is dedicated to all current, future, and possible MMOG's.

If you anyone is interested in joining, all you need to do is email mmorpc-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, or visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mmorpc.

Look forward to seeing you there ;)
Sparrowhawk

Neverwinter Vault (http://nwvault.ign.com/) has posted their extensive E3 report on BioWare's Neverwinter Nights. Included in the report is a 70MB download of the E3 Demo in .wmv format as well as ways for fans to get a copy of the demo on CD or Videotape. Also included is the demo in over 70 screenshots with commentary, a Q & A with Scott Greig and 15 new Desktops zipped up for easy downloading.

The report can be found here:
http://nwvault.ign.com/features/previews/E32001/index.shtml.

Regards,
Maximus
Associate Editor IGN Vault

Best RPG - Runner-Up
Dungeons & Dragons is close to many role-players hearts, and the chance to make your own modules and dungeon master them is even closer. BioWare is creating Neverwinter Nights with the 3rd edition D&D rules to do just that. Neverwinter Nights will be primarily multiplayer, for up to sixty-four players on a server, and include around thirty adventure modules. The editor allows you to create a fully functional dungeon in minutes by painting down complex 3D tiles, adding monsters and items, and setting an entrance. BioWare has made impressive progress on the editors and fleshing out the graphics and creatures this year (hence our selecting it as a runner up for Best Online Game and Best New Technology), so that day draws ever nearer.

Best New Technology - Runner-Up
Neverwinter Editor - The Neverwinter Nights editor secured a slot in this awards list by accomplishing somthing that was a little gimmicky, but also really impressive. The guys from BioWare built a dungeon from scratch, populated it with nasties, stocked it with treasure, scripted AI for its denziens, connected it to the larger game world, and took us into the game to romp through it --all in just a few minutes and all right before our eyes.

The power of the editor really showed through, impressing us with how easy it looked to use and the depth at which it allowed you to customize your creations. We expect the Neverwinter Nights community to take ahold of this with both hands and really churn out some amazing stuff.

Best Online Game - Runner-Up
Here's a game where the originality scored big points with us. Remember whiling away the hours around a dining room table, eating pizza with your dungeon master and friends while exploring catacombs mapped out on graph paper? That same experience is coming to the PC thanks to the Neverwinter Nights engine. You'll be able to build dungeons and keep them online while other people run through them, even linking multiple servers together into a huge continuous online world. If you want to lead your friends thorough an adventure hands-on, you can step into your dungeon, playing as any character or monster. You can alter the dungeon on the fly if it's too easy or too hard for your players. With an already impressive single-player game and a fantastically detailed editor to boot, NWN was definitely among the best.

Baelish: Are there any plans to allow more than 64 players if servers can handle it?

Trent Oster: Until we get more data on bandwidth and traffic management we really can't say. On the massively multiplayer games they use large server clusters with very serious networking hardware to manage their 1000+ user bases. We will have to test it more, but we will probably clamp it at 64. Its the target for now.

I noticed that, like clockwork, the Neverwinter Nuts site has added another Critical Hits article and another cartoon!

http://www.geocities.com/nwnuts/

I have begun my new job, but I did have time to make some changes to the site. Come and visit if you have a chance...

http://pages.prodigy.net/patrick.holyfield/

The private showings were scheduled almost every hour on the hour. Approximately 10 to 12 people were admitted to behold the future of online gaming, and Dungeons & Dragons, as we know them.

It took me nearly 30 hours to finally have my 'turn' with BioWare, but it was worth every millisecond. Prior to getting in, I watched in sheer admiration and envy as everyone left the room, jaws agape, some with tears in their eyes (ok, I made that up) choked up about the godly vision they had been shown. I know that I appear to be going overboard, but I swear to all of you, everything I say is true, and Neverwinter Nights is TRULY that good.

Rob Bartel then showed how simple it was to create custom magic weapons as he deposited some magic treasure in the dungeon. He chose a sword, brings up a little window that allows him to give it a huge variety (in the area of forty or so) of different categories of enchantments. He made a blade called Frostbrand, two handed, +3 to hit, +3 cold damage. He also made a quick piece of full plate armor.

The abilities of the magic items are not all that can be customized though. The appearance of items is fully customizable, as the items are modular in nature. The sword could have a variety of blades, hilts, and hand guards. The full plate had about ten different areas, each independently alterable. Because of this, player appearance will vary greatly.

Hot off development for the acclaimed MDK 2: Armageddon for PS2, Interplay and BioWare are refocusing efforts on their role-playing series set in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons universe. The highly anticipated Neverwinter Nights (Q4 release) is a standalone RPG that will release for all operating systems. All OS versions are interoperable, making possible an integrated matching service for free multiplayer gaming. Using the new 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons ruleset, the game’s official campaign offers four chapters of gameplay in the popular Forgotten Realms setting, and BioWare’s own Neverwinter Toolset is included.

In addition, Neverwinter Nights will let you customize the behavior of any monsters and nonplayer characters in your scenarios with a powerful scripting language based on the C programming language. You'll be able to make the characters in your dungeons interact with players using complex dialogue trees, or only speak preferentially to dwarves, or attack elves on sight, or burst into flames when defeated. And once you've created your especially interesting nonplayer character, or especially challenging enemy monster, you'll be able to upload that character to the Internet so that other users can incorporate those characters into new adventures.

Time: May 19, 2001 at 2pm PDT/5pm EDT
Discuss Neverwinter Nights with Interplaygames at our "LIVE AT E3" event. The chat will take place at 2pm PDT/5pm EDT within the Interplaygames chat room. The chat will be open to the community to discuss TORN developments that have been announced or shown at E3, answer questions that the community may have about E3. There may even be a few developers that stop in for some Q&A.

How to get to chat:
To enter the chat one must first have an account on Interplaygames. To create an account go to http://webboard.interplay.com:8080/new.

Once your account is created you will need to enter the following url: http://webboard.interplay.com:8080/~interplaygames. Once you arrive within the Interplaygames webboards click on the chat button on the top toolbar.

You will then see the chat login screen with your account name and password. Once that screen appears click on the logon button to be transferred to the chat server. You will then need to click on the "Talk to Aqua" link. Once that link is clicked, you will you will be given a nickname. Click on the enter button. The java applet should then appear. Please be patient, it may take a few seconds to fully load.

No game at E3 has a better chance of redefining a genre than Neverwinter Nights. Bioware's D&D-based update of the online AOL MMORPG is intending to be all things to all people.For those who just want to take part in more Baldur's Gate-style adventuring (albeit with an all-new graphical engine and the Third Edition D&D rules), the game sports a 60-hour campaign. For those interested in online role-playing, the game features all sorts of multiplayer modes. This is where the game should truly shine.

Trent Oster
Producer, Neverwinter Nights
At E3 I'll be demoing NWN in the BioWare booth for most of the show. On my own I'll be sleeping. Between demoing and sleeping I hope to hook up with a few people I know in the industry and have a good meal or two.

I'm also looking forward to a number of games, everything from Pool of Radiance and Dungeon Siege to Activision's Spider Man. I also want to see the Promised Lot. Last year I didn't get the chance.

David Hibbeln
Director of Art
I will be looking for people with talent to potentially hire, and talking with industry comrades about their work and processes. On my own I will be looking to see what new games are coming out and what might interest me.

Neverwinter Nuts update!

Join Nina in her fourth Critical Hits article, and another cartoon at NWNuts!

You can find the site at: http://www.geocities.com/nwnuts

What do you think the best Video card for Neverwinter Nights will be? I am looking into buying a new card anyway and want to get the best one for the game.

Simple as that, NWN's graphics API is OpenGL so any card(at or above the TNT2/Voodoo3 class level) that has solid OpenGL drivers should run NWN fine. The higher end the card the more bells and whistles in the game engine you can enable (higher res, multi shadows, more 3D effects, etc). But like Dayln says, you'll be able to play it quite nicely on the cheaper cards as well.

Personally though, I'd suggest the following-

Money is very tight- Get the 32meg TNT2 Pro.

Money is tight- Get a Geforce2 MX or the new Kyro II (Guillemot/Hercules have some very nice cards based on this chipset that are getting excellent reviews).

Money's not a big issue but I've got better things to spend money on - Get a Geforce2 Pro, or bump up to an Ultra.

Money? I'm spending Mom and Dad's ;-)- Get the Geforce3.

Cord Grimwinder-8d
Interplaygames.com Moderator
Neverwinter Nights Boards

I was wondering if it might be a more egalitarian and profitable idea if Bioware were to set up a contest to write the best module using the NWN toolset and involving the Bioware offices and Bioware staff.

Thus, Bioware could pick from the best authored module and maybe find an extremely skilled writer to help construct more modules
with them. Yes, we good authors tend to be divas and have tremendous egoes, but it would advantage not only Bioware but their audience to harvest the best and the brightest through this means.

There is precedent for this in the industry, actually. Valve hired the Team Fortress guys, for instance, and maybe the Counter-Strike team as well (I'm not sure of that one, though). For that matter, Mike Geist, formerly of the BG Chronicles team, now works at BioWare as part of the design team (he'll be moving over to Neverwinter shortly).

Game design is an especially hard department to hire into, as it has no associated degree (like Comp. Sci. for programmers or Fine Arts for Artists) and it's hard to develop a portfolio without already being in the industry. Hopefully, Neverwinter will change that and give talented amateur designers the leg up they need to enter the industry on a professional level. We'll certainly be keeping an eye on the NWN talent pool and I suspect that other companies will be as well.

Best of luck to all,
Rob Bartel
Co-Lead Designer
Neverwinter Nights
BioWare Corp

I can't speak for end-user content, of course (except to say that I think there's a lot of talent out there and a lot of interest in creating single-player content), but we're definitely making sure that the official campaign is fun to play in single-player mode. Despite all of the goodies and features we're adding to the multiplayer framework, the simple fact of the matter is that most cRPG players still prefer playing single-player. For some, it's a matter of taste, for others a matter of necessity. Whatever the case, the single-player market is important to us (after all, that's where we've built up a lot of loyalty with the BG series). In short, when you buy a copy of Neverwinter, we want you to feel that you've gotten your money's worth, even if you never played online, used the toolset, or had a DM guide you through your adventures.

Make sense?
Rob Bartel
Co-Lead Designer
Neverwinter Nights
BioWare Corp

Here's an idea for an "intelligent" weapon: Does anyone remember that annoying NPC Noober from BG1? -- Well, after Noober was slaughtered by a mysterious party of adventurers (later recognized as heroes and saviors of Baldur's Gate), the murder weapon, a +3 sword, suddenly became imbued with the soul of Noober himself. Now the accursed blade incessantly banters, "hiya" every round (interrupting dialogue, combat, and overall role-playing fun). The owner can never unequip the sword and a will saving throw (DC20) must be made every day to prevent insanity.

To all you supposedly good aligned people out there who played BG1 -- NOOBER LIVES!! :?)

Hehe, it's funny - when I wrote Noober, I had no idea how notorious he would become. It was just the end of a long day of work and my brain was fried from too many bloody Fed-Ex quests (I have an aversion to this very day). I showed Noober's conversation to James Ohlen, BG's Lead Designer, and he insisted that the programmers implement a new function just so we could get it into the game. The function ended up seeing some more benevolent use as well, thank goodness, but that Noober encounter seems to be the one that's stuck with people. Every time I see a post about him, I shake my head and chuckle.

Are you going to throw rocks at me?
Rob Bartel
Co-Lead Designer
Neverwinter Nights
BioWare Corp

There is a very interesting interview with Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk at cdmag.com. It was posted this coming friday (5/11/01, heh) and it will actually answer a lot of questions for many people around here (even regulars like me). Go and read it now! Click this link: Orcs Online. I think they may even have new screens there (I know I hadn't seen any screenshots with dead wererats in them).


- Brand

Hi folks,

Just an overview and verification of Greg & Ray's interview from the front lines. =o)

It was a great interview with plenty of new content for newcomers and old-timers alike. I recommend giving it (and all of the recent D&D articles on the site) a read.

As for the current status of the project, some early art testing has begun, as well as some focus testing on the conversation editor. That said, we're using an iterative testing model. This means that the testing process will extend over a long duration, with testing occurring first on the individual game components and later on the actual game, itself. It's a very thorough process and it will mean a more bug-free product at the end. However, while testing has begun, don't get your hopes up yet. A lot of development and implementation still needs to occur.

Regarding their discussion of open file formats and the potential support of custom NWN art content (new skins, models, tiles, etc.), the standardized 'Hack Pack' framework they outline is the one that we've decided to work towards. It's fairly graceful in that, by handling each Pack as a discrete and mutually exclusive unit, it should prevent a lot of the corruption and instability that could result from end-user customization. That said, while we're confident in the system as outlined, it still has yet to be implemented. Should significant complications arise, we may be forced to alter or back away from this sort of approach. Hopefully all goes well. For the time being, at least, NWN Hack Packs are slated for inclusion.

Someone pass on word to Lost Dragon,
Rob Bartel
Co-Lead Designer
Neverwinter Nights
BioWare Corp

Can I use a Neverwinter Nights logo, like the one on the top of the forum, on a website without breaking any copyright laws?. Who and how do i credit Bioware on a site like that?.

Thanks!

Not a problem, as long as you do 2 things:

1) Give credit where credit is due (BioWare as the game's developer, Black isle Studios as the game's publisher, and Wizards of the Coast as owners of the D&D license).

2) Provide links back to the official site (www.neverwinternights.com). The best way to do this is to have the actual image be the link. Links to BioWare, Black Isle, and WotC never hurt either. =)

We love to see all of the fansites that are emerging out of the community, especially ones dedicated to creating new Neverwinter Nights content. Post a URL when you have the page ready!

Thanks,
Rob Bartel
Co-Lead Designer
Neverwinter Nights
BioWare Corp

I'm a little concerned about the sorcerer's GUI, mostly because of a lack of the pause function. Sorcerers know fewer spells, but they can cast more per day, can use higher level slots to cast lower level spells, and the metamagic feats really compound the problem. With the radial menu, how convoluted is it going to be for a 12th level sorcerer to use a fifth level spell slot to cast a maximized magic missile (a first level spell)? If it takes three rounds to get to where you need to be to cast it, it's not worth the trouble. Sorcerers will be missing out on attack and casting opportunities that their PnP counterparts can do with ease. And, what if that sorcerer is dual class? Imagine (and I know you have) a sorcerer/rogue and the interface for that...so many abilities to dig through to get to the right one in combat, with no pause function. It's not that I want a multiplayer pause function, just that sorcerers be efficient. How is that GUI coming along?

There are some good answers posted here, folks. I'll add a few small details that most of you are likely already aware of...

So you know, we are concerned that the GUI is not only extremely intuitive to use, but also that it is both clean and efficient. We've gone to great lengths to ensure this, and you'll be able to pick up on that when you get to see the E3 demo :)

So what is there to choose from? Aside from keypad entry and the radials, don't forget about the quick bar - probably the greatest tool of simplicity in this game. While hitting "3-9-7-8" for magic missile is pretty easy, typing "F2" is even easier.

And... to be honest, scrolling through the radials can be a little slow at first, when you're not aware of how the menus are set up. But this isn't much different from most games. Once you have a moment to figure out the organizational methods we use (I won't even go into how many days were spent working out the structure to make sure you guys'd have an easy time of it :), navigating the radial becomes pretty quick.

It takes about 2 or 3 seconds to cast a spell like magic missile, whether it's metamagic'd or not, with the radial. Plenty of time within a 6-second combat round :) In fact, all commands can be issued through the radial in about this amount of time (or less), even if you aren't aware of the exact locations of the commands (i.e. you want to cast fireball, you know it's a third level sorcerer spell - how long will it take to get there? about 2 or 3 seconds - plenty of time to relax, and watch a good battle unfold without worrying about issuing a hundred commands in 20 seconds or less).

One final note, we already have our own preferences here. Some of us die by the radial, some of us use the numeric key pad, and some of us stick to the quick bar. We're fanatics about control - personally, I won't play a game if the interface makes the experience too frustrating.

So rest assured that "even sorcerers" will have easy access to all their most rare and unique abilities :)



Bob McCabe
Writing & Design
Neverwinter Nights
@ BioWare, Corp.

CGO: What sort of plans do you have for add-ons?

Muzyka: We'd love to be able to support the community, post-release. That's very important to the continuity of the game—making sure that people can enjoy it long-term.

Zeschuk: I think our perspective is that it will be an evolving beast. Neverwinter two years from now... who knows what it will be? I think our goal is to look at how we can continue to improve it. It's not a case of just sitting static; we really want to support it.

Muzyka: We're kind of evolving the model and asking, well, how does the community for a game like this get supported? Part of it is that they actually have all the tools that we have, to be able to make things. We want to develop more content and improve the tools themselves—that's something we're interested in.

Zeschuk: The other issue with the tools as well, which is really important, is that we've made them to be inclusive, not exclusive. In a sense that, sitting down with the Quake editor—it's a fairly significant experience. You have to do a lot of stuff and know a lot of things to be able to accomplish anything. In Neverwinter we've really scaled it, so that basic user, the first time out, can build some areas and drop some monsters in and play in them. At the same time we don't take any power away from the power users—you just have this very scalable experience. The extreme, of course, is that you can go in and start changing scripts. That's available. So that's our goal—to have it scale to the user's desires.

COG: How about Neverwinter Nights?

Jonathan Tweet: Neverwinter Nights is the computer game that we paper role-playing game designers have talked about as a concept—and as something of a boogeyman—for years. We've long told ourselves that, while we don't have animation, sound effects, or digital record keeping, we have something better—a live Dungeon Master. And we knew that someday there'd be a computer game with a live DM. Neverwinter Nights is really going to be something new and different.

Then be sure to check out the June issue (on sale May 15) for a massive 20-page look at the past, present, and future of Dungeons & Dragons-both on the PC and off.

Monday, May 7th:
Interview with E. Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons

Tuesday, May 8th:
Interview with Dave Arneson, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons

Wednesday, May 9th:
Interview with Jonathan Tweet, Lead Designer of Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition

Thursday, May 10th:
The History of Dungeons & Dragons computer games
Interview with Brett Sperry, creator of Eye of the Beholder

Friday, May 11th:
Interview with Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka, co-founders of BioWare

CGO: Have you tried the 3rd Edition rules? What do you think of them?

Dave Arneson: Yes—extensively. My group and I did some play testing and decided that we liked it a lot better than Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, so we have used it ever since then. And, as usual, I have added a few bits and changed a few others.

CGO: What do you think of BioWare's upcoming game, Neverwinter Nights?

Gary Gygax: I've thought all along that any game—massively multiplayer or anything where you go online—is going to do well if it's well done. You've got an ever-growing audience of people. I can't tell you how many times my game group is busy. Now that they're older, well, one's off to college, and one has to work nights, and so on. You are going to run into that sort of stuff online, but not nearly as badly as when you try to physically bring someone into one location.

And I like the idea. I love computer games too, and I think they've got great futures. I'm looking forward to the time when you have video and audio hookups on your computer—when that comes standard. I've been a fan of the computer for role-playing since before the Internet. You can do all your spectacular stuff, all your effects and cinematics and maps and such. I was always trying to get TSR to get more involved in that.

• Weekly News - GuildBoss has come to Stratics! We are pleased to announce that Stratics is now hosting the web site for the popular guild management system..


• Stratics Central - Ever wondered where you can find Stratics Merchandise? Look no further.


• Stage 1 Stratics - Guild interviews at Horizons Stratics. AshBenzaiVII interviewed various guilds the last few weeks, take a look at our Guild Interviews, and maybe request one too for YOUR own guild.


• Anarchy Online Stratics - On June 27th, Anarchy Online will go live! Visit AOS and learn more about this amazing sci-fi MMORPG.


• Asheron's Call Stratics - Devilmouse, AKA Jesse Kurlancheek of Turbine, called into the AC Radio Show on Sunday. Catch up with his views on gear, decal and upcoming enhancements to AC...


• Atriarch Stratics - Lately World Fusion has been spending quite a bit of time in our forums answering questions and dropping the latest information about the game. If you'd like to get involved and talk with the team, come on down!


• Camelot Stratics - presents our daily updated FAQ, and a brand new betajournal by Despayre


• EverQuest Stratics - Stop by and visit our new Map Library! Also, submit your events/weddings/new to our news team to get the word out!


• JumpGate Stratics - Check out the logs to last week's JumpGate House of Commons.


• Neocron Stratics - New phases of beta are just around the corner, so be sure to stop by NCS Beginner's Guide to learn about this fast paced cyberpunk RPG.


• Neverwinter Stratics - is proud to announce the first issue of the Glendenmoor Herald our local newspaper. Were-Grannies and a missing Golem - All the news that's fit to print!


• Shadowbane Stratics - Shadowbane's first phase of Beta has officially come to a close! Check out Shadowbane Stratics for more information as it arrives regarding Beta 2!


• Ultima Online Stratics - Last thursday the sixty-fifth UO HoC was held, you can read back the whole chat on our UO House of Commons site.


• WWII Online Stratics - Take a look at a brand new addition to our History section. Also make sure to read our WW2 Stories.

The new engine, called Aurora, lets Neverwinter Nights utilize full 3D graphics, an expanded Dungeons & Dragons rule set, an optimized and streamlined multiplayer mode, an increased ability in customizing player characters, and, to top it all off, a powerful, user-friendly toolset for making new adventures.

Vince: Just a quick question about tile heights. Are we going to able to create terrain like hills and mountains? I know that buildings can be multi height but what if you wish to place a castle at the top of a large mesa?

Rob Bartel: Yes, the NWN tile system is perfect for situating giant castles and monasteries atop large mesas. =)

I can see my house from here...

Seignuer Cain: I heard that NWN will be able to calculate the price of a magic item. In that case, the program will probably use some "strength points (SP)" for the weapon as a basis of calculation. The character vault will surely need that kind of system.
ex: +1 damage = 5 SP
+2 against undead = 3 SP
etch.

Will I be able to know this "point value" of the magic items I will create?

For persistent world creation in NWN it could be very useful to regulate magic item creation with these "strength points".

Rob Bartel: Yup. These 'strength points' you're referring to will actually be the item's 'base value.' That base value will be programmatically determined and displayed within the toolset.

From there, the DM can add a bonus or penalty to the base value (to compensate for a custom-scripted ability that the item has within the module, for instance). Additionally, some stores might be higher priced than others, selling their goods for more than what they're really worth. So the actual in-game cost of the item may differ from the base value but that value will still be there to provide a common benchmark.

As for using that base value to filter unwanted items out of your campaign, absolutely! If you're running a low-level adventure, for instance, you obviously want to keep out items more appropriate for a 20th-level sojourn through the Abyss.

Another use of such a filter would be for gladiatorial contests where you limit the value of the items that players can bring into the ring.

All that glitters is not gold...

You will easily be able to change the target point of any area transition based on conditions that you set. (e.g. going through the door takes you to the curio shop, however if your carrying the holy stone, the door takes you to a magical realm). However, with your example of respawning monsters, you may also set conditions on when they spawn. You would be able to set a delay (or other conditions) on any spawning once a party has cleaned it out. This would save time on making two identical areas.

As for ships, I will not comment on any specific game content, but Neverwinter IS a port city…


Aidan Scanlan
Writing & Design
Neverwinter Nights
BioWare, Corp.

Most of the tiles have cross-over groups or features. For example, temples aren't found exclusively in the city tileset - they can be found in other tilesets, as well. So, the idea of making villages, not cities, is definitely in. And like the other work-around suggested by JD, if you really wanted to use the city tileset, for example, but have it exist underground, you'd just tinker a little with the lighting and such, and then carefully select the features and groups... it would be very believable :)




Bob McCabe
Writing & Design
Neverwinter Nights
@ BioWare, Corp.

Setting up a portal would be pretty easy for a DM to do, when creating his world. He'd just have to lay down the two transition points, and then add in a doorway or permanent spell animation to make it look usable. With this method, a player could easily go from-and-to any map within the module, even if that happens to be from city-to-city.

Likewise, the DM can create an item (I'm pretty sure about this, but I could be wrong ;) ... ) that would act as the first transition point. The player would simply use that item (a scroll, for example, as in Diablo) to instantly beam to a point pre-defined by the DM. And, one step further, the DM could create the teleport runes you guys mentioned, so that the player could place one item in one location, and use a matching item to instantly bring him to the placed item. Just hope that no one else grabs hold of that first rune! ;)

And the crazy thing is that non-programmers like me could pull that stuff off with about 5 minutes of free time.




Bob McCabe
Writing & Design
Neverwinter Nights
@ BioWare, Corp.

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RPGNet: Do you have any high-tech pipe dreams for the next few years? Is there an emerging technology or an unreleased technology that you're hungry to put to use in some never-before-seen format? Or are you a meat and potatoes man to the last?


Gary: This is a difficult question to answer. I am more a dreamer than a technical guy. Of course I am eagerly awaiting computers that have audio and video capacity so as to make online RPG activity more like a group of RPGers actually meeting in person to play. To me that doesn't seem high-tech at all, just a matter of time.

Currently, I manage to resist getting caught up in computer game play. Knowing I have a great deal of work do do in a relatively short time, to start playing an electronic game is to kiss that responsibility goodbye. I really do lovegames of this sort, and if I begin, I won't stop playing until I have exhausted the potential of the offering. I have no games at all on my computer, even Solitaire has been trashed from memory. All that would just have to go by the boards if a game such as I described above were available. That would be just too much to resist. In fact, the very thought is what keeps me working so hard now- get the creative stuff out, and then I can "retire" and play games instead of designing and developing them.

A racing game...is perfectly feasible (we've been tossing around the idea of some form of dungeon race ourselves, actually). Another one I've been toying with is the idea of a Pac-Man dungeon. And don't forget chat taverns and theatre performances (NWN King Lear, anyone?) as well as countless others that you and I haven't even thought of yet. =)

Brave New World,
Rob Bartel
Co-Lead Designer
Neverwinter Nights
BioWare Corp

By applying Quicken to a spell, the casting time is reduced to zero. Another option for rapid casting is contingency. Not counting those two manners of casting, right now you can queue up as many spells as you wish and your character will continue casting until he/she runs out of queued actions. The spells still take the normal casting time though. We're going to have to look over this for playability a little later on and figure out a good way to show queued actions

Trent Oster
Producer - NWN
Bioware Corp.