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]