NWN2 News

This forum is for general discussion and open to all. If there is anything you wish to talk about with the Chosen then this is the place to do it. Please limit the use of this forum to out of character discussions. For in character roleplaying please use the Free Form Roleplaying forum.

Moderators: Shir'le E. Illios, Bhaern Quel

Post Reply
User avatar
Drathir
Maid
Maid
Posts: 25
Joined: Fri Apr 07, 2006 2:51 am
Location: Here and There

NWN2 News

Post by Drathir »

Seeing as little other things bring as much joy as this I figured Id post whatever I found out(As stated by obsidian No rumors here)

What I know so far:

Fully Functional Subraces Including drow
12 Base Classes Including the warlock 14 Prestige classes including the ones from NWN and the arcane trickster(I may be wrong)
A level cap of 20
You should be starting as a true neutral char(Unless you class requires a certain align) Your actions should define your alignment
And thats about it
User avatar
Shir'le E. Illios
High Priestess
High Priestess
Posts: 2352
Joined: Mon Feb 13, 2006 9:51 pm
Location: Eilistraee.com
Contact:

Post by Shir'le E. Illios »

I moved this topic to general discussion because the “On Promoting Joy” forum is really just meant for silly movies, pictures and such. Since we’re really a NWN/NWN2 player group discussing NWN2 news is something more… serious.

Anyway, as far as I’m aware they haven’t announced the number of prestige classes in NWN2 (though I could be wrong… might’ve missed it somewhere). We do know a few of the prestige classes and we know that Obsidian is including one new (Obsidian-created) prestige class as well.

Also, the maximum number of classes for multiclassing has been raised from 3 (in NWN) to 4… though personally I’d wish they didn’t have a limit. But ah well.

They completely re-wrote the graphics engine and they’re using SpeedTree for the trees (same stuff used in Oblivion… though you probably won’t see forests quite as dense as in that).

For outdoors areas they got rid of the tilesets and are instead using a height-map. This means that you can paint rolling hills and such by raising/lowering terrain. Things like buildings and such are done through placeables. For indoors they still have stilesets, but with a few changes from NWN. There will be far less stuff baked into the tiles (adding furniture and such will all go through placeables) and you can mix-and-match tilesets (apparently).

There will be tinting and scaling of both creatures and placeables, which again should help make things look different. Overall you should have a [i:390jef5n]lot[/i:390jef5n] more flexibility in making areas and making areas look unique.

They also completely re-wrote the toolset. You can still do the same things as in NWN (painting areas, writing dialogs, writing scripts, etc), but the toolset works a lot better. Things like non-modal windows (you can have areas, dialogs and scripts all open at the same time and switch freely between them), docking windows, etc.

The game will also have a better crafting system. Where in NWN the crafting system was added later and didn’t work too well with its dialog-driven interface the crafting system for NWN2 it’s been built in from the start.

The inventory should work differently from NWN. They got rid of the “inventory tetris” by making each item an icon of the same size. From what I understand the inventory will work more like in WoW.

While NWN2 will still have henchmen they will play a far smaller role. Instead they’ve added companions who will make up the other party members. The player will have full control over the companions in combat (exactly how isn’t completely know, but I’ve seen references to it being similar to KotOR and I’ve seen references to there being a more rts-style mode of control).

The user interface will be completely skin-able, meaning that you should be able to replace the graphics and such.

NWN2 will have a world map similar to Baldur’s Gate 2. You can select where on the map you want to travel to and you’ll go there instantly (though you might get a random encounter inbetween). Also note that module builders will be able to supply their own world maps and define hotspots on them (and define how and when to bring the map up and what to do when someone selects a hotspot). And though this wasn’t certain yet it might even be that a single module can have multiple world maps (one map for the city, one map for the lands outside the city, one map for the Underdark… things like that).

NWN2 uses the same D&D rules as NWN, but with upgrades to D&D 3.5. This means that things like the ranger class will be different and that things like damage resistances will work different as well. And numerous other things I’m sure.

And the game will no longer use 2D portraits, but instead use 3D portraits based on your character’s actual head. How exactly this works isn’t quite known yet… it could be either a snapshot (basically a 2D photo of your 3D character), or it could be more animated. Probably the first though. At least this should ensure that not only will portraits actually look like the characters they’re supposed to represent, but you also won’t have to downloads stack upon stack of portrait files.

And NWN2 is currently slated to be shipped in Q3/Summer of 2006.

There’s much more. Just head over to the [url=http://www.nwn2.com:390jef5n]official website[/url:390jef5n] ([url=http://www.atari.com/nwn2/:390jef5n]alternate link[/url:390jef5n]) and have a look. The site includes some descriptions of monsters and a bunch of screenshots.

:)


Love -x-x-x-

Shir'le
F'sarn natha tithaur wun l'su'aco.

-= Shir'le E. Illios =-
Chosen of Eilistraee
User avatar
Drathir
Maid
Maid
Posts: 25
Joined: Fri Apr 07, 2006 2:51 am
Location: Here and There

Post by Drathir »

From what I have read, Although I could most certainly be wrong, Is that the level cap is gonna be 20 so more then 4 classes would get pretty weird especially on some servers where people are not so serious about rping. They are also supposed to be adding new spells(Personally I would like to see the moon domain spells in it) I have seen references to the KoTor series on its party system as well. Not only that but with the new graphical system we will no longer have "saber" rapiers or the rather crappy looking longsword. And lets not forget the pitifully short "katanas" I will miss my tetris minigame though, But yeah they said in an interview or the forums(Cant remember which) That they are gonna use little icons this time. And I would like to see them use a more dnd-ish crafting system. IE: With enchanting and material gathering. It might give a few of the PW's a working economy.
CrankyOzzie
Regular
Posts: 278
Joined: Sun Mar 19, 2006 1:15 pm
Location: NSW, Australia
Contact:

Post by CrankyOzzie »

From what I understand -- I haven't really been keeping up to date a great deal -- but, from what I understand, crafting will work just like in D&D. You will need to take feats to make items.. [i:12c3yzuv]useful[/i:12c3yzuv] items, such as magical arms and armour, wands, potions, etc. I know you can do that in NwN currently, but really, how useful are these items on the majority of servers?
Current attempts at making a truly useful crafting system are rather weak. We have as major contenders, ATS and CNR, both of which have flaws in them Hopefully, as you said, this means that persistant worlds will have more variety in items, and more incentive for characters to interact. it would probably also mean DMs and mod builders would have to police items a lot more, since people could, potentially, make some truly powerful items. I've never really delved into the crafting in D&D so I can't be sure. Then again, given cost of such powerful items, maybe they will police themselves? Considering they cost GP, XP, and materials.

Willy the Wizard: "I'd LOVE to have some new robes, but I don't know how to tailor!"
Betty the Bard: "Tell you what, I'll make your robes for you to enchant, if you also enchant my vest?"


That sort of thing.
User avatar
Drathir
Maid
Maid
Posts: 25
Joined: Fri Apr 07, 2006 2:51 am
Location: Here and There

Post by Drathir »

Since not everyone else plays dnd here Ill explain a little bit, With the right skills feats and/or spells you could make any item you can find provided you have the spare xp and gold to make said item.
CrankyOzzie
Regular
Posts: 278
Joined: Sun Mar 19, 2006 1:15 pm
Location: NSW, Australia
Contact:

Post by CrankyOzzie »

Neverwinter Nights 2 offical site.
[url=http://www.atari.com/nwn2/:3vcsz4i1]Neverwinter Nights 2[/url:3vcsz4i1]

Explanation of D&D 3.5 crafting
[url:3vcsz4i1]http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/feats.htm[/url:3vcsz4i1]

Look under Item Creation Feats for the info.

A snippet on graphics from [url=http://nwn2.warcry.com/:3vcsz4i1]Neverwinter Nights 2 Warcry[/url:3vcsz4i1]

[quote:3vcsz4i1][b:3vcsz4i1]Brian Lawson on NWN 2 Graphics[/b:3vcsz4i1]


Brian Lawson, responding to a poster's less-than-enthusiastic thoughts about NWN 2's graphics, had this to say:

[i:3vcsz4i1]We're doing some things that you probably haven't seen yet in many other games out there. For one, 100% fully dynamic lighting AND shadows. I see a lot of games tout that, but have yet to really see it done at the full 100% level with a few exceptions (Doom 3 and the Crysis engine come to mind). That means everything is 100% dynamically lit on a per-pixel basis (no light maps or pre-baked lighting of anykind) as well as everything casts AND receives proper shadows. Of course there will be optional settings for the shadows.

However, when set to the max, shadow determination and shadow rendering easly take longer than rendering the final lit scene without shadows.

All of that together requires a lot of pixel pushing horsepower. There will be very few, if any current gen cards that could run at the asked about resolution with max settings turned on. SLI/Crossfire will help to a degree. A next-gen card would help even more.

One way to get decent to good to even great performance out of any of these types of (per-pixel lit) games is to run at a lower resolution. Something like 800x600 with a mild anti-aliasing setting enabled I find to be quite pleasing.

However, compare the number of pixels that have to be processed at 800x600 = 480,000 versus something like 1900x1620 = 3,078,000. That's 6.4 times as many pixels that require processing!! And remember that today's games are doing the same amount of work on a PER-PIXEL basis that yesterday's games used to do on a per-vertex basis. :o

Just food for thought.[/i:3vcsz4i1]

Interesting! You can participate in the thread on the official forums.
-Kalia - General - @ [06:07 PM 04/10/2006][/quote:3vcsz4i1]

FYI -- for those who aren't sure -- SLI and Crossfire both refer to the same thing; that being, the proccess of running 2 video cards side by side to get effectivley twice as much power. SLI is nVidia's term, while Crossifre (or xfire) is ATI's term for it. The cards MUST support it, as must the motherboard. As far as I know, PCI-e cards are the only ones that do.
This does not mean you [i:3vcsz4i1]must[/i:3vcsz4i1] be running SLI/xfire cards to play the game, just that the game does support it.


More info on the way the targetting system and quickslots will work, from the same site.

[quote:3vcsz4i1][b:3vcsz4i1]Even MORE On Quick Slots[/b:3vcsz4i1]


Anthony Davis, gameplay programmer at Obsidian, has clarified a lot of the issues that people are having with the new quick slot ability. It is a very thoughtful and informative reply:

[i:3vcsz4i1]Most game developers don't make design decisions 'blindly'. Some of you are going from Zero to Overreact in about .5 seconds and you are going to give yourself an ulcer! Take it easy!

For the NWN2 UI/GUI we looked at where the game 'WAS', where modern games 'ARE' (such as WoW, EQ2, DDO, and may more) and then, based on the schedule, the issues as we perceive them, and the resources available, we made decisions.

I will do my best to explain and bring a little peace and clam to this issue though.

Things that have changed:

You can now explicitly target an individual in NWN2 (unlike NWN1 where targets were implicity selected). This is very similar to WoW. You can then perform actions on this target very rapidly. For example, I have a hostile goblin selected, I cast Magic Missle (through one of the several methods we have available for casting spells) and the goblin will be on the receiving end of the Magic Missle without needing to target him again, again very similar to WoW. If I still have that same goblin targeted while I select Cure Light Wounds, my mouse cursor will turn into the Spell Target Cursor and I can then choose an approriate target for that spell since I cannot (and would not) cast CLW on a hostile goblin.

To cast spells, you can use either the hotbar system (some call it a quickbar) OR you can use the new Quick Cast System. The Quick Cast System is a mini menu system that pops up with a key press (currently defined as 'F' on my machine because I use the WASD keys to drive). Once the Quick Cast System pops open, I can quickly select an available spell. After selecting the spell, the Quick Cast System automatically closes to prevent obscuring the screen. Yes, this also works with Bards, Sorcerers, and MetaMagic feats and No, I am not going into more detail right now.

The old radial menu system as you know it going away. It is being replaced by the Context Sensitive Menu that Josh has covered extensively. I personally feel that with the new system, things have gotten MUCH easier to use. This menu system works very similar (some would say identical) to the way the context system works in most modern operating systems and in Fallout.

In addition to all of this, we are including something we call the 'Mode' bar. The Mode bar is where you will AUTOMATICALLY find all the various modes your character can go into (such as sneak and power attack). This small bar is collapsable and also draggable.

Finally, the hotbar system has completely changed. Your hotbar system will allow for a great deal of customization through the XML system. you can create sidebars (ala WoW) and you can add more or less to the screen as you see fit. We intend to allow some degree of flexibilty to the key binding customization as well. Our hotbar system is MOST similar to the one WoW has.

More on the hotbar, it is NOT one set of hotbar buttons for your entire party. EACH character in the party under your control has thier OWN set of hotbar buttons. That's 144 buttons per character. If I had 3 people in my party, each character would have their OWN set of 144 buttons (though this might drop to 10x12 for 120). If that is too many buttons for you, don't use them all. However I think that when you see some of the other cool unannounced functionality for the hotbar that people will find all sorts of cool uses for the extra buttons and bars.

The default hotbar key bindings work almost IDENTICAL to WoW. Pressing 1 thorugh = will activate the corresponding BUTTON for the currently active HOTBAR. To rapidly switch to another hotbar, you currently use shift + a corresponding key (shift+2 will switch to the 2nd hotbar). Alternatively, you can use the little up and down arrow buttons on the hotbar. Again, this is not a new or foreign concept for hotbars. Many other successful games use the same or a very similar sytem.

I will answer as many specific questions as I can (without releasing information that is still top secret) as long as the discourse is polite.[/i:3vcsz4i1]

Comment on the official forums.
-Kalia - General - @ [12:28 PM 04/10/2006][/quote:3vcsz4i1]
Last edited by CrankyOzzie on Tue Apr 11, 2006 9:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
CrankyOzzie
Regular
Posts: 278
Joined: Sun Mar 19, 2006 1:15 pm
Location: NSW, Australia
Contact:

Post by CrankyOzzie »

Oops, I almost forgot this one. Again, taken from nwn2 warcry.

[quote:3v4hm7g3][b:3v4hm7g3]1) Will crafting an object - such as armor - take time? Something as simple as 1 day per 20gp of cost for armor. Then if you stop to craft a suit of chainmail while you are on a quest to rescue a town, you might find that the 5 days it takes to cost the armor (assuming it costs 100gp), means that you arrive too late to save it.[/b:3v4hm7g3]

[i:3v4hm7g3]Chris Avelone: No, the idea of time in relation to crafting isn't part of the crafting system - the effects of crafting an item in Neverwinter Nights 2 is almost immediate. We have to cater to the immediate gratification aspect of players when possible.[/i:3v4hm7g3]

[b:3v4hm7g3]2) Will you be able to give crafted items custom names? Ex: I could craft a scythe with the vorpal property, and a +10 enhancement bonus vs. cuddly little bunnies, and name it, "Necromas's Vicous Vorpal Bunnyslayer"[/b:3v4hm7g3]

[i:3v4hm7g3]Chris Avelone: That's our intention - the player will be provided with an input box where they can type in the name of the item they have just fashioned (or simply leave the name as is for players who don't want to bother). So, yes, if you want an item called "Necromas's Vicious Vorpal Bunnyslayer," then it can be done with the power of crafting.[/i:3v4hm7g3]

[b:3v4hm7g3]3) Will all of the materials and items necessary for crafting be randomly generated in my module by default? Along those lines, will module authors just have to create some sort of 'laboratory' space to allow players the ability to craft their items.[/b:3v4hm7g3]

[i:3v4hm7g3]Chris Avelone & Charles Mead: Some of the items can be generated through random loot tables, especially since crafting also allows for breaking down certain components (such as Fire Beetle Bellies, Ghoul Claws, Fairy Dust, etc.) you find in your travels. Other pieces of crafting will have to be manually placed in the environment. The actual laboratory space isn’t really necessary, but a placeable object (such as an alchemist workbench, Wizard’s Workbench, etc.) will need to be placed in the environment for crafting to work.[/i:3v4hm7g3]

-Kalia - General - @ [08:34 AM 04/10/2006][/quote:3v4hm7g3]
User avatar
Drathir
Maid
Maid
Posts: 25
Joined: Fri Apr 07, 2006 2:51 am
Location: Here and There

Post by Drathir »

Wow, Naming your items, Now I cant wait for nwn2........Too bad Ill need a new comp to play it.
User avatar
Shir'le E. Illios
High Priestess
High Priestess
Posts: 2352
Joined: Mon Feb 13, 2006 9:51 pm
Location: Eilistraee.com
Contact:

Post by Shir'le E. Illios »

Posted some news regarding light sensitivity in NWN2 on the news page:

[url=http://www.eilistraee.com/cgi-bin/yabb/ ... 0:1k3qobs6]Light Sensitivity in NWN2[/url:1k3qobs6]

Regarding crafting... I wonder how easy it'll be to make an ability where you can only craft magical abilities onto certain swords. Hmmmm.


Love -x-x-x-

Shir'le
F'sarn natha tithaur wun l'su'aco.

-= Shir'le E. Illios =-
Chosen of Eilistraee
User avatar
Drathir
Maid
Maid
Posts: 25
Joined: Fri Apr 07, 2006 2:51 am
Location: Here and There

Post by Drathir »

Awww no daylight adaption feat, I was hoping to have it but Ill deal with it. The more I hear about the game the more I want it. Obsidian is Evil......
User avatar
Shir'le E. Illios
High Priestess
High Priestess
Posts: 2352
Joined: Mon Feb 13, 2006 9:51 pm
Location: Eilistraee.com
Contact:

Post by Shir'le E. Illios »

[quote="Drathir":3qp9iak8]The more I hear about the game the more I want it.[/quote:3qp9iak8]
Well, you'll have to wait a bit more as [url=http://www.eilistraee.com/cgi-bin/yabb/ ... 2:3qp9iak8]the release date is September 2006[/url:3qp9iak8]. :)


Love -x-x-x-

Shir'le
F'sarn natha tithaur wun l'su'aco.

-= Shir'le E. Illios =-
Chosen of Eilistraee
Rooky
Legend
Posts: 1607
Joined: Wed Feb 15, 2006 11:34 am
Location: A spooky wood, with man-eating little giant space hampsters
Contact:

Post by Rooky »

If I remember well what I've read from Gamplay, there'll be a NWN2 out soon.

PLEASE NOTE: Croatia is in the minority. In your country it might be out already, but here...well here, you still have to give away some of your livestock to get a computer.... I miss my pig :'(
:3
User avatar
Drathir
Maid
Maid
Posts: 25
Joined: Fri Apr 07, 2006 2:51 am
Location: Here and There

Post by Drathir »

Last time I heard its slated for septemper in USA......I expect a parallel release in the UK.......I dont know what to say about the other minor countries though.
Kirintha the Fair
Regular
Posts: 233
Joined: Sat May 27, 2006 10:15 pm

Post by Kirintha the Fair »

an Idea... any talk of any modules they'll be releasing for the new game... specificaly... anything to let you level up to epic levels.
CrankyOzzie
Regular
Posts: 278
Joined: Sun Mar 19, 2006 1:15 pm
Location: NSW, Australia
Contact:

Post by CrankyOzzie »

[quote="Kirintha the Fair":2txa231s]an Idea... any talk of any modules they'll be releasing for the new game... specificaly... anything to let you level up to epic levels.[/quote:2txa231s]

Epic levels are NOT going to be in the initial release. Trying to balance a game for epic levels is very hard, and would have resulted in them having to take another 6 months or so to finish the game. It may be in an expansions later on though.
Post Reply