|
Rating
|
Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update August 8, 2008 Well, it's been a long time since I have done an update. I have been so busy lately that I haven't had much time to research anything for the community works section, but I wanted to come here and fill you in on some of the progress we have been making. If you haven't heard already, we have an expansion in the works. Yes, it's true! The expansion (which we refer to as NX2) is titled Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir. With this expansion we will be doing some things that haven't been done in a Neverwinter game before. Things are moving along pretty well on NX2. We just hit Alpha and we are pressing on to Beta, with a few internal milestones in between.  One of the cool things to happen with NX2 is that the Snake & Skull image will appear on the box. This is the first time a full-color image will appear on the box art for a Neverwinter Nights game. The team has been working hard on some great improvements to the game. Probably the biggest of these improvements is the Overland Map system. In previous incarnations of NWN2, players warped around the world by selecting nodes on a 2d map. In many ways this broke the immersion of the game. With SoZ, players will negotiate their way around the world through the use of the overland map - which has a special UI done by Jay Bakke and Nathaniel Chapman to further set the map apart as a different section of the game. I expect you will be seeing more screenshots of this after GenCon. One of our goals with NX2 is to make some of the less utilized skills more meaningful. The overland map really helps support this goal by presenting the player with a lot of random monster, treasure, dungeon and quest spawns - many of which will only be encountered by characters with certain skills and feats. For instance, characters with a high enough score in the Listen skill will be rewarded with a "hissing box" encounter. If you have enough points in the Disable Device skill you will be rewarded with a trap encounter, where the parts of the trap can be recovered and sold. Another new set of features are the party creation and party conversation systems. Like the overland map, the party creation system is a groundbreaker for the Neverwinter franchise: For the first time, players will be able to create their party of four completely from scratch in a Neverwinter Nights game, with the same character creation capabilities as you have for your own player character. We will round the party out occasionally with a couple story-based companions, but the created party will be the core of the game. To go along with the party focus, Anthony Davis has been hard at work implementing the Party Conversation system. This new feature will expand the party-based feel of the game by allowing players to capitalize on the skills and backgrounds of the entire party, not just the party leader, as in previous NWN2 and NWN1 titles. Based on each character's skills and background, different conversation options will be available simply by selecting a different party member's portrait in the conversation. Something else we are doing with NX2, that hasn't really been done in a while with CRPGs is we will be recording a lot of the music from a live orchestra. Unfortunately I don't have any samples to share with you now, but we are talking about making a track or two available, just like we did with Mask. I am pretty excited about the changes and features Storm is bringing to the franchise. From box art to gameplay the game is evolving. Finally, I will finish this update off with a compilation of the E3 coverage for NX2: "Set for release this fall, Neverwinter Nights: Storm of Zehir looks like a solid, game-evolving expansion to the series." - GameZone Video Interview with Matt Rorie Crispy Gamer Article GameSpy Article Thunderbolt Preview GameZone Preview IGN Preview Gaming Nexus Preview The fine print: As this game is still in development, features and functionality may change or be removed before release.
Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update May 2, 2008 It's been a while since the last community update. As such, I thought I would give you a little teaser for some of the 1.13 patch notes, while I write the real Community Update. Please remember that this list is very much incomplete. Bug Fixes General
Multiplayer
DM Client
Toolset
Scripting
Custom Content
New Features Multiplayer
Toolset
Scripting
Be watching for additional information and a proper Community Update within the next couple days.
Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update April 1, 2008 Hello everyone, Today's update is kind of special. We have a great announcement to make and I just couldn't wait until later. NWN2 Expands to the Wii That's right, Neverwinter Nights 2 will soon be available on the Wii! We have been working on this since the release of NWN2 and we are really happy to see it come out soon. It has taken a lot of work and a very dedicated and talented team of developers, but we are finally coming to the end of that project. We just wanted to share it with you here first. Unfortunately, I can't show you any pictures yet - we are still under an NDA - but I was able to get permission to talk about it a bit - though what I can say is limited. Moving the game to the Wii has presented us with a lot of opportunities to integrate the player into the gameplay - and you may have seen some of this in the 2da changes we have been making and talking about. One of the coolest things was the expansion of many of the skills to include some of the kinesthetic aspects of the Wii such as when you need to churn butter to use the new cooking skill or when you have to actually stir a potion to make one. Spellcasting has also gotten more interesting as you have to actually make precise casting motions with your hands in order to cast an arcane spell, or kneel on a dance pad to "pray" for divine spells, or even scribe a pentagram in the air with the wiimote in order to unleash the power of a warlock invocation. It raises spellcasting to a whole new level. Feargus offers this on the move: QUOTE All of us at Obsidian are really excited to bring you this latest incarnation of Neverwinter Nights 2 on the Wii. The inclusion of the toolset in the Wii version, and the migration to the 4th edition ruleset, has opened up new doors for the Neverwinter Nights franchise... Whether you are raising terrain using the Wiimote, wielding your wii Nunchuck while playing a monk or using the Wii Zapper while playing as an Arcane Archer, the Wii allows us to bring you a much more visceral Neverwinter Nights experience. We even changed certain elements of the original campaign to take advantage of the Wii's unique possibilities:
Brandon Adler, Lead Production Tester, says this about the new gameplay elements: QUOTE I really enjoy the hand-to-hand combat with the new combat animations and how it all works with the different Wii objects, like the dance pad and the nunchucks. My favorite part is when you get to beat up Grobnar, but I don't really think that should be an evil thing. The game is planned to be released later this year, but is looking pretty good already. There will be special Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil editions released in Europe that will come with stylized white and black wiimote straps respectively. We will also be releasing the game in a special limited edition "Elminster" package that will come with a WiiStaff - a six-foot long replica of Elminster's magic staff that functions fully with the Red Wizard and Arcane Scholar of Candlekeep prestige classes. I hope to post some pics and more news on this later. April Fool's!
Neverwinter Nights Community Update March 28, 2008 Well, it seems I can't get to this blog in any sort of timely manner. Working on the patches has taken up much more of my time than I anticipated. Because of this, I am going to offer community members the opportunity to send in articles for the Blog. Your articles can be about anything NWN2-related. If there is a bit of Custom Content you like, a persistent world you are excited about, a module that seems fun and interesting, or anything else, and would like to share information about it with the rest of the community, just send the write up to me here via PM. If you would like to include screenshots or pictures, let me know and I will send you an e-mail address to send them to. Today's Update will cover a bit of the 1.13 patch, the MoW authentication delays, some community creations and the NWN2 Area Design Contest. 1.13 Patch Sneak Peek While we are still nailing down the 1.13 patch - the MoW Security work makes this difficult - I thought I would just give you a sneak peek at some of the fixes already planned for the 1.13 patch:
As always, items in the patch are subject to change as need and time dictates. I should be posting a more detailed list in the next couple weeks. We will be doing something a little different and making the lists and the progress updates available in different languages. Mysteries of Westgate Security System There has been a lot of craziness surrounding the MoW Adventure Pack release regarding the online authentication system that is being worked on. To help clear things up a bit, Keehwan Her from Atari has posted the following news in the Neverwinter Nights 2 Forum QUOTE Hi everyone, My name is Keehwan Her and I am the Atari producer for Mysteries of Westgate (MoW) among other D&D products. Most of you know that the release of Mysteries of Westgate has been delayed because of ongoing development of a new security system. Near the end of MoW’s development last year, we realized that the traditional protection of the .exe file would not work with it so we scrambled to find a reliable commercial method that would do the job. At the time, there was no solution that met our requirements. That is why, since the end of 2007, Atari has been working hard to develop a new security system that can be used not just for MoW but for all Atari products that need protection for data files without using the traditional route of wrapping the .exe file. Unfortunately, developing this system has taken longer than we anticipated and MoW’s release has suffered as a result, because it is the first product that will use this new system. Atari has been working closely with Obsidian and Ossian to try to integrate the new system with NWN2 and MoW specifically. Although we wanted the security modifications to go out with Update 1.12, it simply was not ready in time so we unfortunately had no choice but to push it into Update 1.13. I realize that many of you are anxious to get your hands on Mysteries of Westgate, and I know from firsthand experience that it is a fantastic adventure. MoW has been ready to ship for a while now and we are close to finalizing the new security system that will ensure that it has its proper day in the sun. In the meantime, we are working hard to keep cool information about the game coming. Thank you, -Keehwan We are now busily working on the 1.13 patch. There are issues with the authentication system that Atari is working on that may cause a delay of the patch - hopefully not too long. Community Works Unicorn Model by Daronas  Daronas has put together a quick unicorn model based on the NWN2 horses. Full instructions on bringing this model into your module and to download the files can be found on the Neverwinter Nights 2 Vault. Hooked on Pirates?  Johnny Ree, of BouncyRock Entertainment, has created a great set of pirate hook hands you can equip to every race and gender of character. You can find the mod here on the Vault. Hak Compilations If you have ever wondered if many of the individual hak packs have been combined, the answer is yes. Just follow this link to the Combined Hakpaks page on the Vault. Neverwinter Nights 2 Area Design Contest We are almost at the end of the contest (deadline is midnight, March 31, 2008 Pacific Time). There have been some great entries so I thought I would show some of them off today:  Water Baron's Castle, by Chaos_Theocrat  Drow Cave, by botmys  Yamato, by SDJ With that, we come to the end of another Community Update. I encourage everyone to submit articles and/or ideas for articles to me via PM on these forums. If we can do that, then these updates will become more regular and more frequent. Happy Gaming -Rob
Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update February 29th, 2008. Being that today is the 29th of February, a slightly different day, I thought I would do something slightly different for today's Blog. For about two hours today Khaveen gathered questions from members of the NWN2 community then passed them on to me for answers. For various reasons, I was not able to answer all of them, but the vast majority are answered below. I am also going to announce a new contest for the NWN2 community. NWN2 Area Design Contest I am happy to announce the next contest for the Neverwinter Nights 2 Community. This contest will be an area design contest. You do not have to put in creatures or encounters, this is simply a contest for the most beautiful areas. All work must be your own and the areas must be built and useable in the NWN2 Toolset. No plagiarism will be allowed. You can submit UP TO THREE (3) areas, packaged in a single module. Entries are to be submitted on the NWVault, under Area Prefabs for NWN2. There is a NWN2 Area Contest category you can submit them under. Areas can be any size, but they must be exteriors (larger areas are better, but not necessary). You can use custom content that is currently on the vault, or you can use custom content that is on the vault by the time the contest ends. Some of the things we will look at would be the best use of space, overall beauty and originality. The top two winners of the contest will receive a brand new Matrox TripleHead2Go Surround-Gaming module. You can start submitting your entries to the vault now and the contest will end on March 31st at midnight, Pacific time. As for the Custom Content contest, I am afraid that the accusations of plagiarism have made it impossible to judge this contest. As such, no prizes will be awarded for it and no winner will be announced. It is unfortunate, since the entries were all very nice. Community Q&A Q: What is the current estimated release date for the upcoming NWN2 Adventure Pack: Mysteries of Westgate? Ossian Studios is working on this project. They would have the best information available to answer this. Q: Atari's business release seems to have hinted at plans for a second expansion pack to NWN2. Any comment? We would love to work on a second expansion. Q: In which patch might we see a fix for the ActionSit() script? Would you consider using existing community hak work in it like Heed's ActionSit()? We have commented on this in the past. Basically, sitting is a lower priority for us than other functions and features in the game. That doesn't mean we will never fix it. I have just seen Heed's ActionSit on the Vault. I will need to check it out more but, if he is willing and it doesn't cause any issues, I might look into integrating it in a patch. Q: How far ahead do you plan when it comes to the patches? The 1.12 patch is currently in beta, so do you have plans in general what focus the 1.15 patch will have for example? How does that work? I have talked about this a bit in the past. I generally plan about three patches out (current patch +2 patches), but the plan stays flexible enough to change things if need be. With the 1.12 patch, there were some things reported by the community that seemed pretty important. We took a look at what we had planned for the patch and realized that we would need to bump some issues from 1.12, so we let community members decide which issues would get bumped. Q5: How many people are on the team that works on the NWN2 patches? We have a core team of about 5 people and we pull in any number of other people when we need them. Q: Was the Mask of the Betrayer expansion a financial success for Obsidian? MoTB did really well for an expansion. It was in the top ten in Europe for quite a while. Though an expansion will never do as well as the main title, we are pretty satisfied with how MoTB was received.  Q: Are there any plans for further optimization of the NWN2 engine (load times, performance, graphics)? We are constantly making optimizations to the engine. Q: With the ability to have 2d player portraits, what are the various portrait sizes we need to have? 128 x 128 TGAs Q: After having changed the testing process with the 1.12 beta test, do you think the initial plan of targeting 6 weeks per patch cycle is still viable? Yes. 1.12 was sort of a test to see how much we could do in a given period. Thanks to some delays in the beginning, there is much more content in 1.12 than there will be in later patches - we just kept adding things in while we were waiting for something. After 1.12 is released, I think the smaller six-week patches is very possible. Q: Are there any cool new scripts planned to be added (or fixed or enhanced) in upcoming patches? Can you share any details? There's a couple I can tell you about. In 1.12 we will be making the ability to change the scale of an object available through scripting. Additionally, in 1.13, we will be adding a set of Get and Set Custom Heartbeat functions for both creatures and placeables. This is really powerful for things like custom AI and such... watch for more information on this as we get closer to 1.13. Q: Are you still planning to allow HAKs to load before the character creation? Any timing estimate for this? Currently we are planning that for the 1.14 patch. Q: Do you see Obsidian still supporting the NWN2 community in 2010 (patches, forums, etc.)? Unfortunately I forgot my magic 8 ball at home... Q: Are you planning on adding any base classes, either in an expansion or an adventure pack? If new classes get added, it would most likely happen in an expansion, not in a patch or adventure pack. Q: Will weather ever get fixed/fully implemented in the toolset? I want my raging blizzards and torrential rain falls. It's possible. Right now I am trying to keep us focused on issues that are more core to the game. Q: Is there any possibility that Hide in Plain Sight could be changed to have creatures hostile to the hider (say within 20m) automatically attempt to spot the hiding creature when he uses this ability? This would prevent creatures using HiPS from getting free sneak attacks against creatures that should be able to detect them during that time interval between their hiding and the creature's natural perception event. Creatures should automatically be attempting to spot invisible/hidden creatures. If they aren't, that would be a bug. Q: Is there any possibility that the bug with missile spells shredding spell mantles will be resolved as well as any fixes to the impossible-to-defend-against bigby spells (5 and 6)? It's always possible. As we go through the spell issues and take care of base functionality, we will be better able to address and add "new" functionality. Q: Would it be possible to get functions that would return the AB of creature's highest AB attack, as well a function to get the creature's AC by type (e.g., get its dodge AC or natural AC)? These functions would be invaluable to those of us who write custom AI scripts. I'll see what we can do. Q: Could we get the option to set a creature's school of specialization as well as its domain in the toolset blueprint editor? I'll see what we can do. Q: Will there be officially supported class balances (that is, like giving the Pale Master 9/10 spell progression or making wildshape/polymorph an effective playstyle)? I think things like this can be seen in the future. We have been talking a bit about changes to the Warlock class to balance it and make it a more interesting class to play. I would like to see changes to the Pale Master and Blackguard classes, myself. Q: Is retroactive 'tintability' going to happen (like making the brown bear black, for instance)? Perhaps I am not understanding the question. I believe you can tint a bear that has been instantiated (placed) already. Q: Will there be expanded functionality in the VFX editor? For instance, having 'locked' effects, like polar, but having the ability to change their angle (like cartesian effects). I do not think there are any changes planned for the VFX editor in the near future. Q: Are we going to see new models (placeables and creatures) added in patches, or will they be limited to 'paid products' only? We have a couple things in the works but, as you can guess, the legalities of including community-made content are difficult at best. Q: Do you plan to fix the GetNext*() bug with merchants soon? This is tentatively planned for 1.14, but this item may change as we progress through the patches. Q: Can we expect more fixes for the toolset? Yes. Specifically, we should see a fix for the multi-select crash issue in the 1.13 patch. Q: Are there any plans to add the scripting hooks that were added in later NWN1 patches (1.66 to 1.69 once 1.69 is final)? Yes. Q: When a new module is created, it is missing defaults for most of the module events. Could this be fixed to point to new default scripts (that are simple empty mains) for consistent module development? I'll see what we can do. Q: Could the Wildshape uses per day be incremented when a cutscene strips the effect off (one line code change for both MotB and the OC)? This sounds like a bug. I'll see if we can get this into one of the next couple patches. Q: Can Obsidian provide Tazpn (or anyone else) with any information that would help him with importing animations from .gr2 files? That feature is at a dead end and we could really use it. If Tazpn contacts me, I'll see what I can get to him. Q: is OEI aware of the CopyObject() problem when used with creatures? If so, is it on the Fix list? if not, what does OEI need from us to validate the problem? You would have to be a bit more clear as to what the problem is. Does it not work? Does it copy money and such? Q: There seems to be an issue creating mystic-theurge type prestige classes (seems to require the replacement of the harper agent PrC). Is OEI planning on addressing this (and other PrC class specific CC defects)? We would have to know more about this issue to address it properly. Q: Is OEI planning to implement the ability to create instant action feats (like elephant hide) in the near future? I was just talking to some people about this this morning. I can't promise that anything will be changed, but I am hopeful. That will bring an end to another Blog. Stay tuned for patch news next week.
Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update February 17, 2008 This week's Blog is dedicated to the fine folks over at the Neverwinter Nights Podcast. Apparently Jay has been missing the community content side of things. Well, it has been a while since I have posted anything on that, so today's Blog will focus mostly on that side of the community. We will also feature another Persistent World spotlight and talk a bit about the upcoming patch. Community Works RWS Pocket Cathedral  The guys from Robinson Workshop have released their Pocket Cathedrals product! These guys have been working hard on a lot of architectural packs for NWN2 and this Cathedral pack is just another example of their quality work. You can find out more on NWVault here. BTH Shield Pack  A great shield pack from Barry the Hatchet. You can find it here on NWVault. Wicked Leather  One of the more difficult items to model for NWN2 is armor and clothing. nzdawghaus brings us some 'wicked leather' armor. You can find it here DMFI Bulletin Board  Qkrch has released a great tool to integrate into your modules and persistent worlds. You can check it out on Neverwinter Nights Vault here Persistent World Spotlight: The Known Lands By Deider  What is the world known to its inhabitants simply as The Known Lands? ... a world of islands, where continents are myth. These islands dot the Ebon Sea, and are home to mountain ranges with dwarven citadels, forests of elves and fey, and plains occupied by the nations of humans and other races. … a world of ages, the current one said by sages to be the Third. Legend holds that the Second Age ended in a cataclysm so mighty it wiped out all civilization. Three thousand years into the Third Age, all that remains of the Second are crumbling ruins… and rumors of artifacts and relics of unbridled power. … a world of revelations, in which not all is as it seems. Forty years ago the people of The Known Lands were shocked to discover that beneath the dwarven citadels lies another realm, a seemingly never-ending labyrinth of tunnels and caverns labeled the Underdark. More recently wild elves, heretofore unknown to the rest of the world, emerged from their desert home.  … a world in turmoil. Thirty years ago the drow – the only creatures to have emerged from the Underdark – attacked most of the dwarves in their citadels, almost annihilating the race, only to disappear as quickly as they came. Many people responded by uniting to form nations for collective defense; one of these new nations displaced the halflings from their homeland, causing what some have called genocide. Decades have passed since these events, and at last calm has settled over the land – much as it does before a storm. … a world of adventure. Will the mysteries and secrets of the Underdark be laid open? Will the drow be found and the dwarves avenged? Will the Third Age continue in peace, or will it end in fire like its predecessor? When The Known Lands are threatened, will heroes rise up to save it? The History  The Known Lands (TKL) gameworld started as a pen and paper (PnP) game in 1998, transitioned into a play-by-e-mail (PBEM) campaign in 2000, and, thanks to Obsidian, morphed into a NWN2 persistent world (PW) which went live in April, 2007. It is a setting rich in detail, further expanded by the actions of player characters (PCs); many of the world’s famous non-player characters (NPCs) were PCs played in the PnP and PBEM games (and some of the players of those characters are now staff members for the TKL PW). The Philosophy At TKL we are determined to create a PW that has a PnP feel. The prime example of this philosophy is our party system. PCs are assigned to parties; each party has a weekly session run by its party DM. This ensures that all PCs in TKL interact at least once a week with a DM, and are able to spend time with a stable group of fellow players. The parties take part in plots and adventures in which their PC backgrounds may come to the fore, and where their actions have lasting effects on the gameworld. PC interaction is not limited to party events. As a PW, TKL is online 24/7, and PCs from various parties can and do meet online all the time. DMs also run free-for-all events, in which any PC can join. What to do when a DM is not online? While our focus is on roleplay, TKL has its share of bells and whistles – a dynamic loot system, advanced item crafting, enchanting, and customization, automated scripted quests, perilous areas full of traps and monsters, even a custom card game – to enjoy when your party is not trying to save (or take over) the world.  Perhaps more importantly, our PnP philosophy towards TKL extends to our attitude towards players. We pride ourselves on being a small, intimate PW with an extremely friendly community. Players and staff alike treat each other with respect, and issues are discussed maturely and rationally. And while we are serious about roleplay (as can be seen from our relatively detailed player application), we know not to take ourselves too seriously – at the end of the day, TKL is all about people getting together and having fun. The Call An established gameworld with detailed lore. An experienced, friendly staff. A mature, respectful community. A beautifully, soundly built (and constantly expanding) module. Guaranteed consistent DM interaction. A world shaped by your input and your character’s actions. If you are looking for these things, then you will find them… in The Known Lands. http://knownlands.com Patch 1.12 Update Well, we have hit the lockdown phase for the 1.12 patch. You can find a discussion and preview of the patch notes here, on the NWN2 forums. From here we go into the localization and testing phase of production. We have already been testing the fixes and changes as they were implemented - making tweaks along the way. But we will be testing the patch in more depth and we will be starting the closed beta very soon. If you signed up to help, expect that you will be involved. I should either be PMing you or sending you an e-mail this week with instructions. After testing, we will enter the finalization phase where the patch is fully built and released.
Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update February 1, 2008 Just a quick update on the patch progress today since I was out of office for a week+. I will be going through the volunteers for the closed beta next week, so you may receive an e-mail or PM from me. I think next week I will give another update and include some community content and perhaps a PW spotlight, for those of you that have been missing that. So, without further delay... QUOTE 1.12 Patch Goals (Feb 1, 2008)
Items in green have passed the first phase of testing.
Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update January 11, 2008 Quick update today as things are pretty busy with 1.12 getting underway... 3d Model Contest Just a quick update on the model contest. We received a lot of great entries. Unfortunately, many of those entries also came with the accusation of plagiarism. That means the entries have to be reviewed for authenticity, unfortunately this is proving difficult. I am now planning to announce the winners in February to give us time to review all the entries. 1.12 Patch News The patch is technically in a pre-production phase right now. We may need to do some work to prepare for Ossian's Mysteries of Westgate Adventure Pack and that is delaying the shift into full production phase. In the meantime, some progress has been made. QUOTE 1.12 Patch Goals (Jan. 11, 2008) Items in green have passed the first phase of testing.
As I said, this update would be short. I plan to do another update next week with a bit more info and our regular community works section.
Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update December 21, 2007 This is the last Blog for 2007. As we bring a busy year to a close, we'll take a look at a cool product, some shuffling in the Purgatorio team, an excellent modification to the game, another great tileset from the RWS guys and an update on the 1.12 patch progress. An Interesting Product Normally, I wouldn't be on here talking about other products, but we have been having some fun with this one, so I thought I'd share. Matrox has created a hardware device that allows you to connect three monitors to combine them into one big monitor. Here's a shot of our test system showing what it's like:  You can find out more by visiting Matrox's website here: http://www.matrox.com/graphics/surroundgaming/en/home/ Additions to the Purgatorio Team So, with Monty coming over to Obsidian Entertainment, they apparently needed to bring on a herd of new people to fill his shoes on the Purgatorio Team. The folks at Rogue Dao have assimilated Baron and Hellfire and have started putting them to the whip to help finish up their Planescape mod. I know all of these guys will be great additions to the team. Crafting Mod in Progress For NWNX4 Carter DC has created a great system for crafting in NWN2 - much like the old NWN1 Crafting System that was made available in one of the expansions. This system will allow you to change and re-color your armor/clothing and much more! You can check it out here on Neverwinter Nights 2 Vault. New Concept from Robinson Workshops The guys at Robinson Workshops have come up with a new concept for their tileset work: Pocket Tilesets. Their newest entry on NWVault, Pocket Citadel, includes an explanation of this new concept: QUOTE The concept behind Pocket tilesets is to make smaller tilesets, with the same level of detail (if not more) as our larger sets but to provide the basic tiles needed to create a good cross section of areas. the advantage of this is we can work a lot quicker because many of the basic tiles are simply variations of a type. We can produce these sets rather quickly and release them as such.  Along with this new concept, the guys at RWS have released their first pocket tileset - the Pocket Citadel. "Originally envisioned as an expansion to the Deep Halls Tileset but it gre to the point where it seemed to make more sense to release it on its own. It follows a more dwarven feel than the Deep halls set." You can find this great tileset here on the NWVault. 1.12 Progress Just a little update on the 1.12 patch. As you know we are attempting to move forward with a new patch process. Some of those changes are a shorter development cycle to allow us to get the patches out to you faster, and a closed beta period where some community members can get a sneak peek at the patch and provide some feedback for fixes and changes. As we release more patches, the process will continue to evolve and improve. The patches themselves will evolve along the way as well. Today, I will bring you the first changes to the 1.12 patch as we remove some items from the list to make room for some other, more urgent fixes. QUOTE 1.12 Patch Goals (Dec. 21, 2007)
Looking at this list, I still feel it is extremely ambitious, so it may get cut down a bit more. We are also still gathering feedback from the 1.11 patch and Hotfix, ,which will probably alter the list a little more. We are still finalizing things and development on this patch should be starting around mid-January. Well, that brings this Blog to an end. From all of us at Obsidian: Happy holidays to all of you and best wishes in the new year! See you next year!
Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update December 7, 2007 Hello again! For this update we will talk about some changes, a custom mod and some community works. Monty is Assimilated! Well, more like he has come to the Dark Side. Monty Markland has come to work for Obsidian Entertainment. "Who is this Markland guy," you ask? He was the head of the Community Modding group Rogue Dao Studios - the makers of that great Purgatorio mod we have all been watching so closely. So, to ease your fears about this change, while we fit him for his cybernetic eye and re-designate him as 110 of 110, I held Monty at gunpoint to get him to write this little message to you all: QUOTE Obsidian Entertainment is awesome. I started working here on Monday. The past five days have been the coolest experience I've ever had. For everyone out there thinking, "It must be rad to work in the game business." I can tell you that, yes indeed, it is rad. "Who are you and why do we care?" Well, I've been the public face of the Planescape Trilogy project for the past 15 months. I felt like it was important to let everybody know that my arrival at Obsidian doesn't threaten the completion of Purgatorio or the rest of the Trilogy at all. There are 23 incredibly talented ladies and gentleman currently working on Purgatorio, folks such as: Kevin Chow, Scott Douglas, Johnny Taylor, Courtney Keene, Ryan Placchetti, Daniel Haas, Andrej Bartulovic, Heather Kirk, Jason Ng, Michael Cipriano, Will Sprinkel, Bruce Hayles, Matthew Roeder, Sampo Narhi, Gabor Valasek, Robert Fletcher, Atte Laitenen, Marko Radojkovic, Ryan Farnsworth, Andres Cruz, Johnny Ree, and Kris Hammes. I also continue to work on the project in my own time. If anything, I think my working at Obsidian will make the Trilogy and the community stronger. Rogue Dao Studios has now proven itself to be a pipeline into paid game industry jobs. This will make recruiting new talent from outside the NWN2 community an easier task. More talent working on the Planescape Trilogy will mean a better gaming experience for everyone. New talent joining the NWN2 community will be a win for everybody involved. I've been bullish about NWN2 since its release. I'm bullish about NWN2 now. I'm bullish on the Toolset. I'm bullish about Mysteries of Westgate. I think Mask of the Betrayer demonstrated the true potential of Neverwinter Nights 2 and I think even more exciting things will be revealed in the future. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. That really seems like his writing, right? Cool. We welcome Monty to the hive and look forward to the food he brings us. Harp & Chrysanthemum - A Custom Module by Maerduin Harp & Chrysanthemum is a custom mod created by Maerduin. While you are reading his summary below, you can start downloading the mod here. QUOTE The story begins in Drawn Swords, a tiny settlement on a crag between the Backlands and Sunset Vale. You had come here with Vroman Horner, an amiable treasure-hunter of about one year’s acquaintance, in order to meet with his brother Manfred; the three of you were to seek adventure together after meeting up. But when Manfred fails to arrive on time, adventure finds you before you can find it. Aided by a stern and lovely paladin of Sune, the good folk of Drawn Swords, and the diffident Vroman, you are soon drawn into a drama of religious conflict, military stakes, and esoteric mystery…only to find yourself, quite unexpectedly, the drama’s key player. *Single player, for fourth-level characters *Has two forced companions, one optional companion *For neutral or good characters only *Melee, roleplay, tracks/tricks: medium *Doing the main quest and all side quests would rack up about seven hours of play in my best estimation. Community Works Weapon Packs by MWMDragon MWMDragon has created quite a few weapon packs and placed them on the vault. There are way to many packs to just focus on one, so I thought I would list a few of them. Spears: Click Here Warhammers: Click Here Greataxes: Click Here Handaxes: Click Here He has much more than this on the vault. You should check it all out. You can find it all in the NWN2 Hack packs section. Kaycei's Hair  Kaycei has created the first hairstyle in what is hoped to be a series. This hairstyle is only for human females so far, but requests for more races are wanted. You can download this hairstyle here, on Neverwinter Vault. Deepsnow Prefab Area  SGK73 has brought us another prefab area. This time it is a deep snow set. This prefab includes a pretty cool feature that makes it appear as if your character is walking in... you guessed it... deep snow. SGK73 has also included a script that will slow your movement speed in some areas. You can download this prefab from NWVault here. Clearing the Air We have been making some changes to the way we will be handling patches moving forward. While I can't give you full details yet, I will let you in on some of the changes: We will be working on a six week schedule for each patch, starting with 1.12. This is a tighter schedule and that means that the number of fixes and features included with each patch will be reduced when compared to the average patch in the past. This, however, does mean that you should be seeing patches more often and at a more predictable rate. We are setting our goals pretty high with this new plan. We will be attempting to address some pretty important, but very risky fixes and features as well. As part of the new plan, I hope to make our patching process more transparent. I would like to tell you much earlier what we plan to work on in the patches and keep you much more up to date as to how the patches change as we go through each phase: from production, through testing and, finally, to release. I will start this process by posting our primary goals for each patch in this blog. These lists will not be complete lists of what we plan to address as we would still like to put a few surprises in and we will still be keeping exploits a secret so as not to make PW Admins' lives more difficult. The lists will start out pretty general in nature and, as we discuss each patch internally, the lists will become more refined as we add and remove fixes and features from the goals list. Eventually, I would like to be able to post a plan for up to three patches out, so you have a general idea of where things are heading. So to start things off, here is a list of goals we have for the 1.12 patch: QUOTE
Now, as I said, this list can change. We are feeling pretty confident about it now, but in game development there are always snags and issues that prevent some things. It is also important that you realize that this is not a promise of what will be fixed and when, but more of a list of goals that we hope to achieve. Some of the items on this list are so risky that they could bump some items to a later patch. Also, just because you do not see the issue that is important to you in this list does not mean it has been forgotten. Chances are your issue is scheduled for a later patch. Personally, I am pretty excited about the new changes. Hopefully you are too. We are currently scheduling the first patch to be released around February 11, but there are some things that may push this back a bit. That brings this Community Update to a close. See you in two weeks (or sooner if there is something important to update). |
Last entries
Last Comments
moreus on NWN2 News August 8, 2008
Jashkar on NWN2 News August 8, 2008 Tin on NWN2 News August 8, 2008 chris421 on NWN2 News August 8, 2008 Alban on NWN2 News August 8, 2008 Lance Botelle on NWN2 News August 8, 2008 Rob McGinnis on NWN2 News August 8, 2008 Lance Botelle on NWN2 News August 8, 2008 fastpunk on NWN2 News August 8, 2008 Deadly_Nightshade on NWN2 News April 1, 2008 Categories
My Blog Links
5 user(s) viewing
5 guest(s)
0 member(s) 0 anonymous member(s) |
Aug 8 2008, 05:54 PM