Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update
September 29, 2007
We have had a busy week with the release of Mask of The Betrayer and the 1.10 patch. As such, the update had to be pushed back slightly, hence the Saturday update this week. For this update we will talk a bit about the 1.10 patch, Mask of The Betrayer and take a look at a veritable cornucopia of community-made custom content.
1.10 Patch
The 1.10 patch was released this week. It is the 1.07 patch with only data fixes, to cu
Some fan-based questions I answered recently, posting them to share - it's about Ravel Puzzlewell from Planescape: Torment and some of the thoughts behind her creation.
What was the origin of Ravel?
We had a number of physically powerful enemies in Torment, and I thought a night hag would be a good adversary, especially if she was a cryptic, deadly puzzle maker. As the game went on, the idea that Ravel was a branching creature whose life resembled a great tree (or bramble
Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update
September 14, 2007
It's that time again. This week we look at the Sacred Fist prestige class, a couple great community mods and the Sundren Persistent World.
Mask of The Betrayer
Sacred Fist
Sacred Fists are independent organizations found within many temples. Their ascetic members have turned their divine magic inward, bringing their bodies and wills into harmony. Sacred Fists have forsworn the use of weapons and heavy armor. They con
I occasionally get interview questions from students aspiring to be designers. I try to warn them, but...
...anyway, if you're curious, here's some answers. And some questions to go along with them.
1. What is a typical day for you as far as working on a project or projects?
I get into work at 9:30, and try to work for an hour without checking email. This work can be writing design documentation, designing a system, doing mock-ups for an editor or toolset, or
Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update
September 7, 2007
Today's Community Update brings us a look at the Arcane Scholar of Candlekeep prestige class in the upcoming Mask of The Betrayer expansion. We will also get a look at some community-made Visual Effects packs and the Persistent World Spotlight is here again. Also, in case you didn't know, the 1.07 beta patch has been released, so we talk about that a very little bit.
Beta Patch 1.07 "Premonition" Released!
The 1.07 Beta p
Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update
August 31, 2007
For this edition of the Community Update, we are going to start off with a note from Nathaniel Chapman. He is one of the Assistant Producers on NWN2 and MoTB and is now leading the effort for ongoing support with the game. This is in the patch notes, but I thought it would be good to post here as well. We will also take a look at the Invisible Blade prestige class and some great spears made by community member, Feydakin.
What kind of NWN2 Player are you? Do you only play Single Player games? Do you only play on PWs? We want to know.
Please select what your primary role is.
Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update
August 24, 2007
Another week has passed and we are now another week closer to the release of Mask of The Betrayer.
This week we will announce the winners of the Fan Art contest and talk about the next contest and contests to come. We get another voice recording from one of the MoTB characters, and we take a look at some of the community creations.
Mask of The Betrayer
Over the last few weeks we have been seeing quite a bit of discuss
Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update
August 17, 2007
Time for another Community Update! This week we will take a look at a great Community Initiative, read a bit about MoTB from a player's perspective and check out a couple great community modifications.
Community Content Compilation
Thunderblade_33 has taken the initiative to develop a Community Content Compilation project. Rather than steal his thunder, I'll let him explain it:
I think this is a great idea. You
Got back from Comic-con, and here are some pix from the show, in case anyone is interested.
Just a heads up that we'll be at Gen Con and PAX in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out for Mask of the Betrayer.
Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update
August 10, 2007
Another week, another update. This one should be fun... (Make sure you read to the bottom. That's where the juicy bits are).
For The Music Lovers!
Many of you have been seeing me prattle on about how much I love the music for MoTB. Well, today you get your chance to hear for yourself.
This clip is the main theme from Mask of The Betrayer. Please right-click it and save the file to your hard drive before listening.
Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update
August 3, 2007
Time for another Community Update. This week we are going to look at some new spell chants for MoTB, a new feature for builders in 1.07 and a great Persistent World. We will also get a small peek at the options screens for the new camera and controls and a great new community addon by cdaulepp!
New Feature for 1.07
One of the things we have been trying to do is include some of the improvements from the expansion in the pa
So, I generally despise writing companion romances (I think unrequited and/or doomed ones are ultimately more dramatic), but there are some techniques I've accumulated over the years that I try to incorporate into writing and designing romances in RPGs.
A lot of these things came out while writing Gannayev-of-Dreams in Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, and I suppose it could hold true for other inter-party romances in games. What follows is a summary of some points we kicke
Off to Comic-Con within a week, although we won't be showing Mask of the Betrayer there, the plan is to show it at Gen-Con Aug 16-19, and PAX Aug 23-25 as it currently stands. This may fluctuate, so don't quote me on this.
In honor of convention season, I present some things to look forward to at game conventions.
Enjoy and have a good weekend, folks.
Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update
July 20, 2007
This week's NWN2 News Update was delayed so that we could bring you a certain piece of news.
Pool of Radiance Remastered Released in Spanish
The folks at the Spanish community Neverwinteros and the Spanish translation group ClanDlan have translated the original Pool of Radiance Remastered by the Hall of Fame author Markus 'Wayne' Schlegel into the Spanish language.
The mod is fully translated and available for dow
Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update
July 13, 2007
This week we take a quick look at the NWN2 Fan Art Contest, Some great user-made content and we take another small peek at the NWN2: Mask of The Betrayer expansion.
NW2 Fan Art Contest
I thought I would show off some of the entires for the NWN2 Fan Art Contest. The contest ends July 31st, so get your entries in quickly. We have two categories you can submit your entries for. The first category is Your Favorite Creature
Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update
July 3, 2007
Welcome back to another NWN2 Community Update. This week, I am doing the Community Update a day early, due to a Holiday in the United States. Today's edition features some of the Console Commands that will be available to DMs in 1.07, a little information about Multi-Select, some changes to the camera and controls in Mask of The Betrayer, a look at an upcoming Persistent World, and a little surprise for patch 1.07.
Multi-Select
T
Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update
June 27, 2007
So this week, we get another peek into one of the new playable races in the Mask of the Betrayer expansion, some great custom prefabs to make your modules more interesting and easier to implement, a couple screen shots from Rogue Dao Studios' Purgatorio mod and the first Persistent World focus for the Community Update. Enjoy!
Mask of the Betrayer Secrets: Genasi
With Mask of the Betrayer, Genasi will be making their debut. Ma
Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update
June 20th, 2007
Another busy week has gone by. Since the last update, we have been playing on the 1.06 patch. Things are definitely improving and I am sure many of us are thankful for the undo functionality added to the toolset. [Edit: I was just sent a PM from JasonNH on the Bio Boards. Unfortunately, there appears to be an issue where Undo removes water. This was not reported in the beta, so some investigation is underway. New information: This
I dream of a day when 1-bit alpha will go away. It looks terrible. There are excuses for why we have to do it right now, but MAN does it look bad. Tree leaves with 1-bit alpha? Horrible. Hair with 1-bit alpha? Awful.
I have a dream. Share this dream with me. Together... we can make it real.
Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update
June 13th, 2007
NWN2 Game Update Version 1.06 Released!
That's right, the 1.06 game patch has been released. French-language users may have a little trouble downloading the patch. You can download the patch from the NWVault Official Patches page while we work on a fix. As always, we want to hear about any issues caused by the patch. You can let us know here, in the announcement thread on the Bioware forums.
We Have a Winner!
Congratulatio
One of the most important attributes of a good designer is the ability to apply critical thinking to any aspect of a game. At a convention recently, a bunch of game developers kept repeating how important critical thinking was. An audience member asked, "Well, what is that really?"
There's this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Thinking but that doesn't necessarily give anyone a good idea of how that is applied to game development. One thing we often ask applicants at Obsidian i
