5) Which were the most difficult steps during the module planning? How much time did it took?

The most difficult - some of the horse scripting I think. That gave the programmers fits. They were pushing the limits of the game engine. I think they did a fantastic job! In the end - I would say our horses were as good and perhaps better than any in any other similar game I've seen. I think it is absolutly no surprise at all that Obsidian had to cut horses from NWN2. Aside from just the riding, there were the joust rules (our project lead even corresponded with Gygax to get them just right). And cutscenes, and cute outfits,... LOL

Ben the lead designer and writer laid out the story based on the requirements that he include 1. The massive tileset (building spanned about 3 years and nearly every member of DLA) that was designed by Martin Ellis and called TNO (Tir Na Og - an Irish legendary land) 2. Horses - lots of horses and 3. Cloaks, tabards, coats (which Adam, Francis and I had invested well over a year in at that point).

The module took one full year to build and script. The art content took about 3 years. There are tens of thousands of man hours in that mod and its art content I would guess. I think we must have been nuts to take it on but it was a hell of a fun ride and most of us were so relieved when it finally was released.

The other hard part was when Bioware/Atari/WotC went from "ON" to "Cancelled" then back to "On" last summer. That was a real emotional roller coaster for the team. Some of us had literally years of work in it and it was so close to being done at that time they cancelled it. You will note there is a special thankyou to Feargus Urquhart of Obsidian in the module credits...

Calling something the Holy Grail implies that it is 1) desirable above all other things, and 2) unattainable. I would argue that non-linear CRPGs are neither of the above, necessarily. We�ve seen examples of how linear designs can produce very effective roleplaying experiences, so a non-linear design is not necessarily the best possible choice for a particular scenario. That said, a non-linear CRPG with unbounded freedom of choice should be a fantastic experience. But is it doable?

The answer is yes, with some caveats. With a computer controlling all aspects of the game, true freedom of choice is simply not possible, as human intelligence and creativity cannot be fully captured in programmed reactions. In a computer-controlled environment, it�s best to think of linearity as a continuum, running from completely linear on one side (your path is dictated at every stage) to open-ended (multiple paths nearly always exist). The one CRPG in my experience that best represented open-ended design is the classic Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. Its unique main plot focused from the very beginning on the PC�s development and offered a large number of paths to pursue it, not locking the PC into a set course of action at any point until the very end. In more recent times, the Elder Scrolls series has featured largely open-ended play, with wide flexibility in character development and freedom to pursue activities in-game at the player�s pace, including ignoring the main plot.

NWN Modules

Faerun Online by Faerun Online Staff (Persistent Worlds) -- Questo � il modulo del server Faerun Online, rilasciato pubb...

BaseMod v1.4.3 by Ioryo (Persistent Worlds) -- This is a base Module for start building your own PW... B...

MERP: Trollshaws Quest BETA by Laruna Dechain (Classic PnP Conversion) -- See discription for story. This is beta edition and still...

NWN Other

Plague Knight by Clannach (Other) -- This is the Plague Knight package. This package adds a new s...

NWN Portraits

Teveriel by Cheezy (Arcane Archer) -- DK's arcane archer named Teveriel.

Sci Fi female portrait 1 -> 10 by Earalia + Jezira (Human) -- Extract from the Sci Fi pack female 1 -> 10 : http://nwvault...

Sci Fi female portrait 11 -> 20 by Earalia + Jezira (Human) -- Extract from the Sci Fi pack female 11 -> 20 : http://nwvaul...

Drow Compliation Pak by Barnibus (Drow) -- A Drow Compliation Pak... Enjoy. To install: Take wanted por...

Huge thanks to IGN FAQs As well as the author of this amazing work Wandaien (wandaien) thieves-guild.net

-- QSW @ 3:20PM Tue 09 Jan 2007


NWN2 Strategies - Crusader build by Greenish  
Print News | Mail News | Category: NWN2 - Site Features
Thanks to Greenish for submitting a new entry to our strategy section titled "Crusader build". The article covers creating an Crusader build which is a mix of a fighter, divine weaponmaster and Berseker. Here's the intro.

Crusader is a sworn enemy of evil, but unlike Paladin he doesn't enforce order. He relies on his combat prowes but also has limited divine combat skills to fall back on when he faces greatest of evils. He mercilessly hunts demons, devils, undead and evil dragons.

"Harper isn't exactly hero material...she's a bard, a damn good one, and has spent most of her life blandishing tales about other people. And when her life is thrust onto a pinwheel track of death, danger, magic, and adventure, she finds more and more people look to her for answers. And more than a few are looking to her for something more... "

NWN2 Original Hakpaks

• Religious Cloaks of Faerun by Wild Bill(Armor) - Human Cloaks with the major religious emblems of the Realms (Torm, Tyr, etc). This also has the male and female versions of the cloaks offered in Pack One.
  
  
  
• Tintable Clothing, Part 3: Plate Armor | 1.1 by Cleitanious(Armor) - ***************************************************************** Neverwinter Nights 2 Tintable Clothing, Part 3: Plate Armor | 1.0 Texture By By, -Obsidian -Cleitanious (ByblosHex@gmail.com) *****************************************************************
  
  
  

  NWN2 Scripts

• List Functions by WizardStorm Think Group(Scripting routines) - WizardStorm Think Group is pleased to present to you three addional String Functions and nine new List functions. We think you will find these functions invaluable in your future projects. Enjoy!!!
  
  

  NWN2 Other

• Enchanter by Clannach(Other) - This is my Enchanter Specialty class package. Based on Blackhowling's script set. It adds Summonable enchanter pets which are floating weapons. Adds-1 floating hammer, it improves every 5th lvl. Adds- 2 floating blades that also improve with level. they will start as daggers then eventually become swords at higher levels. you must type Enchanter for the subrace &your; class must be
  
  
  
• NWN2 Numbered All Feats & Spells Guides by Rahaney(Spreadsheet) - All implemented game feats and spells in 2 easy spreadsheets. Both spreadsheets contain only those feats and spells that were implemented (i.e. not removed) for NWN2. All entries are coded alongside their 'game' number. Feats.xls is categorised by groups where as Spells.xls is by class. Both are in Excel format and can be 'sorted' easily to allow player specificity. Enjoy
  
  

  NWN2 PWC

• Blackstone Keep PWC by driller(Modules) - This is the PWC file needed to play on Blackstone Keep for NWN2. It is a action based casual RP persistent world
  
  
• demonwood by anima(Modules) - PWC file needed to play the demonwood module
  
  

  NWN2 Characters

• Weapon Master by Ravenloft(Level 15-20) - This is my first toon on NWN 2. he is a lvl 7 fighter/lvl 6 ranger/ lvl 7 weapon master who dual wields with greatswords. I never go past lvl 7 with a weapon master, cuz I really don't see the point. Oh and his two favored enemies are outsiders and undead. so please vote

ungodly network spike
It is a known issue, but is not resolved in 1.04 yet as wer are still troubleshooting it. For us, it seems to happen randomly, if at all.

1.04 addresses the DM-related crashes. DMs transitioning to exteriors should no longer crash the server. DMs exiting should no longer crash the server.

As for the traffic burst issue, we are still looking into that to find the root cause.

Possible Campaign-stopping Bug
I will be going through these threads today.

*sigh* This is ridiculous
I used the toolset a lot on my own over break and there were a few things that stuck out as particularly painful:

* The toggling of paint/select terrain when adjusting the camera. Really irritating.
* The slowness of the Armor Set tab.
* The wacky relationship between tint values set in the Armor Set tab and the tint values on the creature's basic properties.
* Lack of fixed lights in the preview pane.
* Zero-ing out of z-axis data when copying and pasting groups (e.g. a torch with a flame effect and a light entity).
* That re-baking an area doesn't selectively re-bake individual tiles that have changed since the last bake.
* Overly complex collision meshes on placeables like the rural walls and fences. This can result in absurd bake times unless they are all marked to environment objects with extensive walkmesh cutters built around them.
* The store management interface.

I've written up all of these things for programming and art, so hopefully they can address some of the major issues in the future.

On the other hand I don't believe for a minute that the campaign (or any other profesionally designed game) was designed with the NWN2 toolset. There's just way to many bugs to believe a paid dev team diligently worked with this toolset and didn't find at least some of the bugs or bothered to change them.

You are correct on this. The toolset we used was buggier and designers had to work without most of its features for half of the project.

Obsidian and the Custom Content Community
Not sure if this has been answered by anyone yet...

In walkmeshes, each face has a 32-bit flag. We have seen the values 0x0, 0x9, 0x11, 0x21, 0x41 and 0x101. The bottom bit seems to indicate whether the face is walkable or not, but what do the other bits mean?

The bit assignments for the walkmesh face flags are:

bit 0: walk bit ( 1 = walk, 0 = no walk )
bit 1 - 2: reserved
bit 3 - 13: material ( used for footstep sounds, etc... I dont know what will happen if more than one of these are set at the same time. I dont recommend it. )...
bit 3: dirt
bit 4: grass
bit 5: stone
bit 6: wood
bit 7: carpet
bit 8: metal
bit 9: swamp
bit 10: mud
bit 11: leaves
bit 12: water
bit 13: puddles

bits 14 - 31: reserved

Casting VFXs as EffectVisualEffect?
in theory, you can specify nearly any model as vfx, be it a tile, be it a casting vfx, be it a creature. Some will work, others will lack the necessary nodes to work.

1.69 request thread #3

A couple of functions I would personally find nice...

EffectWounding(int nAmount, float fIntervalSeconds) - Just like regen, only not. Have the same options as Regen. And no walking corpses like entering a negative amount in EffectRegenerate, please.

EffectCessate(effect eEffect, int nVisualEffectID, float fDuration) - Triggers a linked effect (or function) upon the expiration of this effect. Unlike DelayCommand, EffectCessate can be removed in a While loop check like other Effects can. Handy if someone invokes a custom script more than once, and you only want the eEffect to trigger once when the entire thing wears off.

What you really want is EffectRunScript(string sOnApplyScript, string sOnUnapplyScript, int nEffectIcon).

That would effectively open pretty much all of the effectsystem into the scripting language and allow you to create any effect you want in scripting.

// signal event id to effect target
EffectSignalEvent(nApplyEventID, nUnapplyEventId)

would work as well...

Not sure however if it would be feasible to add something like this at this point.

no end
There's lots more than just 2 bosses. You're just getting started.

abbreviations
BMU is the file extension for NWN music files (as in mus_templegood.bmu).

If it means anything else, I don't know it.

retexturing shields
Check if a DDS exists for that texture name, as NWN has preference for DDS over TGA.

If so, you might have to grab a TGA to DDS converter (look on the Vault).

[WCoC] Modeltype 'FT' in 'appearance.2da'?
The addition of T and W toggles and enables the use of the Tail and Wing nodes.

Wyvern crown of Cormyr Authentication problem resolved.
Strange,

We've processed all requests from yesterday. Appologes for the delay your account has been repaired. Please check the email address associated with your BioWare Community Account for more information.

More: sbaldwin,

The override_bak files are just backups of your normal override directory created by NWN when you install the expansion packs. They should not affect the game. I've managed to load the game with a lvl 15 character and progress to thunderstone. I've also started the game with a level 1 character, not leveled them up and progressed to thunderstone. Can you please provide more detailed information regarding what is happening when you attempt to play the game?

Not getting what I paid for!
Hi there,

Support was closed for the holidays but as of this message we have addressed all outstanding BioWare Store/Module support requests.

This FAQ details how to re-download your purchased modules:
Click Here

HAKPAKS

Starship Interiors missing 2 votes.

Frostmourne - Bastard Sword missing 2 votes.

Customize Character Override Hak missing 2 votes.

3.5 Edition V4.2.6 (Balance changes, bug fixes, AI improvements, and more) missing 3 votes.

Brynsaar PW Hak Package missing 4 votes.

Castle, City, Rural & Below Expanded (CCR&BEX;) v5 missing 7 votes.

Arcanum Castle missing 7 votes.

Animation FIX for HotU missing 7 votes.

CEP 2.0 Races Brownie/Wemic missing 7 votes.

Longships (SOU) missing 8 votes.

MOVIES

Shadowlords 2 missing 2 votes.

The Lands of Mirent Tusk II missing 5 votes.

Demon Movie missing 6 votes.

Emergence missing 6 votes.

Blackwood Begins missing 8 votes.

Dreamcatcher3 missing 8 votes.

HDM Xerxes of ALFA Presents: Waterdeep, the Movie missing 8 votes.

A (Birth)Day to Remember (in honor of Hugie's 17th) missing 10 votes.

Vampire: The Masquerade MP/PB missing 13 votes.

LOK Tutorial 5 : Adding Animations missing 14 votes.

NWN Hakpaks

True Shadow Dragon by Ramas Obarskyr (Creatures) -- This is just a reskin which transforms the standard shadow d...

NWN Modules

Arctacia Adventures Trilogy 1.0 by Arctic-Cat (Puzzles) -- This is a puzzle/adventure module. It is solely intended as ...

Portfolios

Fate of Faer�n by Dan Bashaw & Jessica Berardi along with others (Action) -- Fate of Faer�n is a persistant NWN2 world in the Forgotten R...

Sounds

Arcanum tracks by Kraven_Khor (Music - Ambience) -- After 3 years of playing and downloading NWN content from th...

The Hero returns triumphantly to his home. I feel this is the best piece i have written and put on the NWvault. I have taken the score and put it into my music programs, So this piece wasn't written specifically on the computer, it was intended for a live orchestral performance.

• Arctacia Adventures Trilogy Released (Community / Modules)
  Arctacia Adventures Trilogy Released
  
  

"Harper isn't exactly hero material...she's a bard, a damn good one, and has spent most of her life blandishing tales about other people. And when her life is thrust onto a pinwheel track of death, danger, magic, and adventure, she finds more and more people look to her for answers. And more than a few are looking to her for something more... "

"Here a few screenies to keep you updated on what is going on with the tileset I am developing.

In this issue of the rocky mountains news, we got raised terrains and lake/river shots.
Both are still incomplete, and especially the raised mountains will be further refined and more terrain combos added, which will completelly remove any cake layer effect when painting them down.
So expect new screenies very soon. With next update, I could be adding TNO castles as a plugin (the tileset will have its own buildings too, in its final stage)"

New rocky mountains 3rd screenshots release by lord rosenkrantz

NWN2 English Modules

• Tragedy in Tragidor by Phoenixus(Single Player) - Traveling on a Caravan bound for Sundabar, a terrible storm has whipped up forcing Caravan Master Sergei Wettell to pull in for the night in the tiny hamlet of Tragidor. But a sinister secret is brewing in this little town where nothing is as it seems. A town full of life where it's people hack their lives out of the wilderness bearing their children along the way.
  
  
  

  NWN2 Original Hakpaks

• Galchutt 's heads by Galchutt(PC Parts) - Two human female heads. They are just re-textures of the existing heads but they do not overwrite the original heads.
  
  
  
• Whatbrick's NWN2 Character Customization Collection by Patrick Wilson (whatbrick)(PC Parts) - A collection of custom hair, heads, and other models I've created for NWN2. ******************************************************************* Neverwinter Nights 2 Character Customization Objects v0.something by Patrick Wilson aka "whatbrick" on the Vault aka "LeAdderNoir" on the Bioware forums *********************************************
  
  
  
• Robes and Kilt Override by Team Advent(Armor) - On request, I'm uploading the recently submitted male clothing haks as an override version. override version of : http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2HakpaksOriginal.Detail&id;=59 and http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2HakpaksOriginal.Detail&id;=58
  
  
  
• Roof Fix for Tile by Sirrob01(Tilesets) - Standard Interior - Floor 4 Corners (TL_SI_CCCC_01) Was missing roof - mesh and texture added. Simply place into Override folder, if Obsidian fix's just delete file. Replaces exsiting tile.
  
  

  NWN2 Tools

• Naked Plugin for NWNX4 by lostdreamz(Other) - This plugin for NWNX4 will automatically tint the characters body to the same color as their face. It also replaces the default armor visual type with naked. It can be used on its own or with blue kobolds naked hak pak. It works similar to letoscript by logging the character out when they first enter the game. After relogging the characters naked outfit will be set.
  
  

  NWN2 PWC

• Ashen Realm 2 Teaser by Kepp(Persistent Worlds) - PWC file for the ashen Realm 2 teaser

Might have figured out the sound thing - Dev response requested
I'll see if I can get an answer for you.

Your Questions
Some of the questions are actually requests for bug fixes and/or new content. Please do not put those in this thread.

Scaling Creatures....is it possible?
I'm quite serious, it's how we pulled off the horse sizes in WyvernCrown without having to prescale them for every race/gender/phenotype.

There are a couple problems though:

1) You can only do the scaling in increments set in the appearance.2da, so unless you like having say, 200 entries for 1%, 2%, 3%...200%, it's better to have them on a more managable level of 10%, 20%, 30% etc.

2) Personal space will be whacked out if you, say, apply a Dragon-as-a-Tail for a null creature that would be of a more common Medium size (of course you can just make more null creature entries with the proper perspace values)

3) Only 255 entries allowed in the tailmodel.2da, and even doubling up on wingmodel, it only gives you 512 models to use, and we'd need more. It will also conflict with actual wings and tails, and possibly dynamic hair/head/ open face helm systems.

4) And yes, only non-part based creatures can be scaled. So everything BUT the PC races.