Neverwinter Nights 2: Fan Interview, Pics & Videos

Cdaulepp's Impressions:

Prestige Class Descriptions
Pictures 120_2026 to 120_2098
I didn't realize how long it would take to take these pictures and there were only 4 demo booths and I had a line behind me. But I decided to be a little selfish and take more pictures because of how far I drove and because I knew that while a few people might have to wait a little while longer, all of you would thrilled.

So I started in on Prestige Classes (I came back later and took pictures of all the base classes). For example, picture 120_2026 is the Arcane Archer and the couple of pictures after it are the descriptions for the Archer. And so I continued with all of the prestige classes, ending at the weapon master, or picture 120_2098. Again, this was just as important to me because you get to see if Obsidian made any changes to their implementation of the classes compared to the core rules.

For example, I didn't notice the Red Dragon Disciple getting any boost to Charisma in the description on picture 120_2080. This is a change from NWN 1. There's lots of nuggets of info. for those who take the time to read it.

Deity Selection and Deity Icons
Pictures 120_2099 to 121_2103
I thought some of you might like to see what the deity icons look like. That's what these pictures are. Sorry for the glare in the screen. There was nothing I could do about that.

Character Background and Bonuses
Skipping 2 pictures for the time being, brings us to Pictures 121_2106 to 121_2112.
When you create your character you do not have to choose a background if you don't want. You can choose NONE. But if you choose a background, the background actually changes some of your skill checks. I was making a rogue/fighter in this picture and its possible that there are more background personalities to choose from than the ones listed for my rogue/fighter. I'm not sure if the possibilities are dependent on your race, sub-race, or ability points. That would be a good question for the Devs. to answer.

All you ever wanted (or didn't want) to know about skill points
Pictures 121_2104 to 121_2105 and pictures 121_2113 to 121_2131.
I've been dying to find out how skill points are implemented. In this sequence of pictures I created a human rogue starting with 18 intelligence, 15 strength, and everything else was 10 points. I wanted to see what would happen if I started rogue at level 1 and then took fighter the rest of the way. You'll notice in the progression of pictures, at level 1, I max out a bunch of skills. I had 52 points to spend (and silly me forgot to see if skill point saving was in or out at this point, so I spent them all).

I then took 3 fighter levels. The fighter class skills are highlighted in blue. But as you can see from the pictures, on my fighter levels (character levels 2, 3, and 4 ) I was able to raise my tumble and Use Magic Device skills by 1 point each time on my fighter levels at the cost of 1 skill point. (I did not take Able Learner). So that's how it is implemented. I like it.

The last picture in this sequence is my modified skills, not how many points I spent in each skill. I was so shocked at this point, that I totally forgot to see about if a character can save skill points or not, and if so how many can they save. But I'll cover that in the interview section!!!!

Base Class Descriptions
Pictures 121_2132 to 121_2173
The line behind me was growing thinner. I think some people had given up hope that I would stop taking pictures at this point. Seeing the line behind me disappear and the line behind the other 3 booths grow longer, I proceeded taking pictures of all the base class descriptions. Once again, it shows us exactly the way they are implemented in NWN 2. There's no more guessing.

I then opened the toolset and took pictures of lists of the monsters. Shane and Ryan asked not to publish them yet, so I don't mind complying. I know what they are. I believe in the honor system, so I won't publish them. Perhaps Obsidian will release the information before the game goes public. I have more to say on this later in this report. Anyway, there's a gap in my pictures starting at picture 121_2173 because those are the toolset lists of the monsters.

The Siege Keep
Picture 121_2187.
This is the only still picture I have of your keep that Lord Nasher gives you. But I have 5 videos of the battle that takes place at the keep. The videos say a lot more than this one picture does. As soon as I get the videos hosted, I'll post a link to them.

The Interviews
Shane DeFreest- PR Guy - I only said hello briefly and I didn't see him at all later. I was so occupied in taking pictures that I have no clue when he left the booth. I guess hello doesn't count as an interview, but I got to meet him.

Brandon Smith- PR Guy, and Travis Stout- Previous Obsidian employee - I saw these two, and they looked like they were employees. You can tell because everyone who hasn't seen the game before has this awe-struck grin on their face. The employees have seen it and they have a different look (I don't know how to describe it). Anyway, I asked if they worked for Obisidian and I introduced myself. They'll remember me as the guy in the red University of Oklahoma t-shirt. Go Sooners!

During my discussion with Brandon and Travis, Ryan returned to the booth, so I actually got to ask a bunch of questions of the three of them together.

Here's my questions in no particular order.

1. Q: I noticed in some of the pictures released that there are feats in the toolset for prestige classes, such as the Fist of Raziel and Mystic Theurge that have been confirmed as NOT being included in the initial release. Will the feats related to these classes be left in, so that I could make an NPC who was a Mystic Theurge or Fist of Raziel?

A: Travis - Many of those feats are inactive. They don't do anything.

A: Brandon - I'm pretty certain the legacy material from NWN 1 that doesn't do anything and the material related to the Mystic Theurge and Fist of Raziel will be removed and cleaned up before the game ships.

A: Ryan - No. Those feats, and constants point to code that doesn't exist anymore. They will be removed before the game ships.

2. Q: Please explain ECL Penalties and experience. I know we discuss it to death on the forums, but what is the official word on this subject.

A: Travis and Brandon - There were several different methods discussed of how to implement the ECL race penalties in regards to experience and character levels. But we're not sure exactly.

A: Ryan - Oh crap. I can't remember. Let me ask Josh. *Gets out cellular phone, dials, Josh answers, Ryan asks Josh my question, Ryan hangs up*

A: Josh (vicariously through Ryan) - Let's take Drow for example (since everyone talks about them the most). They have an ECL of +2. For a drow PC to advance from level 1 to 2 requires the same amount of experience that a non penalized character would need to advance from level 3 to 4. Similarly, for a drow PC to advance from level 8 to 9 requires the same amount of experience that a non penalized character would need to advance from level 10 to 11, and so forth.

3. Q: So a normal character needs 6,000 experience to become level 4 and a drow must have 6,000 experience to advance to level 2?

A: Ryan - Yes.

4. Q: Not to beat this question to death, but just to be certain, especially for multiplayer and PW administrators who want to set caps on experience and character level...A normal PC needs 190,000 experience and they advance from level 19 to 20. So a drow who gains 190,000 experience would be advancing from level 17 to 18?

A: Ryan - Yes. In the single player campaign, there is no cap on experience, and a drow PC can reach level 20 and so can the other ECL penalized sub-races. In a multiplayer setting, however, by capping experience at 190,000 only characters with no ECL penalty can reach level 20. The drow in this example, would only be able to advance to level 18.

Me: Thanks a million for calling Josh to get the definitive answer on that one. I wanted to make sure I understood it correctly.

5: Q: I saw when I was playing with the toolset that you are using the "paint" method for encounters. You know the one, where you draw a zillion rectangles for each encounter in the game. I didn't look at every area, but are all the areas done this way?

A: Ryan, Brandon, and Travis - Yes, all the areas are done that way.

6. Q: When monsters spawn, do you dynamically add attributes, abilities, items, feats, or other properties to the monsters through scripts, or do you maintain different blueprints for each monster variation in the toolset? For example, if I wanted an Orc with an acid axe, one with a fire axe, and one with a cold axe, do you have 3 blueprints in the toolset or just one?

A: Ryan - We have the basic instance in the toolset to draw from and then if the developer needs or wants a certain type of weapon for a monster, they paint the monster in the area and then modify that single instance however they need it.

The following questions were asked during or after Ryan showed me the battle/siege of the keep and were sparked by the following comment Ryan made about the keep in the single player campaign.

Ryan - "When Lord Nasher first gives you the keep, it is a piece of junk. It needs serious repairs and the men need training so they can better defend it. You get to spend money and do certain things to upgrade your keep. You can purchase better training for your men, upgrade the defenses, upgrade your weaponry, etc."

7. Q: What can you tell me about sieges and the keep in NWN 2? I only play multiplayer and I'm most interested in how they will work in a Persistent World setting. Could each player or guild on a Persistent World own/have a keep and be able to upgrade it and defend their own keep or invade someone else's?

A: Ryan - Right now the keeps and sieges are controlled and ran entirely through scripts and triggers for the single player campaign. I believe it is possible to script it so that they would work in a multiplayer setting. If someone scripted that *Ryan got a HUGE smile on his face* that would be something I'd really enjoy.

Persistent World sizes
8. Q: I want to ask about Persistent World sizes. The reason I asked earlier about how you handle your encounters in NWN 2 and my question about dynamic spawning of monsters was to help me understand where the developers were coming from when they made the comments about module size.

Have you heard of the PWFSE_SPAWNER system for doing encounters?

A: Brandon, Travis, and Ryan - No. What is that?

Me: I play on a Persistent World in NWN 1 with around 2000 areas, yet we've been able to keep the size of our module down to only about 70+ MB. It's based off the old Dragon Mountain Boxed Set.

Brandon, Travis, and Ryan - We loved that campaign. That is an awesome setting.

Me: We used to use the "paint" method to draw encounters. [sarcasm]You know how fun that is. If you change a creature blueprint, then you have to click the "update instances" button and wait for 2-3 hours while it cycles through every area in the module to update every instance of the creature.[/sarcasm] That was no fun. We spawn monsters now through scripting instead of through triggers and painting of encounters. It has significantly reduced the size of our module and has allowed us to have 2000 areas in just 70 MB.

Brandon, Travis, Ryan - How does it work?

Me: In the PWFSE system we paint waypoints in the locations where we want our spawns to occur. Then, in the onEnter event of an area, when a PC enters the area, all the monsters on the screen are spawned at once. Instead of having zillions of painted encounters, we paint waypoints down. It's much more efficient that way and has reduced the size of our module significantly. For those occasions when we need a trigger to spawn a monster - a boss perhaps - we can mix PWFSE with painting triggers.

This ended the interviews. But I have a few more comments about PW size because I am very much encouraged by what I heard and saw in the toolset. When the Devs discussed PW maximum size a month or two ago, many PW builders thought it was the end of the world for them, but there is some good news after all. It was obvious that NWN 2 still uses the same method of painting encounters that NWN 1 used. I would be willing to bet that painting encounters in NWN 2 is just as bulky and inefficient as it was in NWN 1.

The Devs comments about PW size have to be understood in this light. There is a better way to do encounters, in my opinion, that greatly reduces the size of modules in NWN 1. If this same method for encounters can reduce the size of areas and modules in NWN 2 then everyone can create a larger world than was previous thought possible.

Ryan asked me to shoot an email over to Frank Kowalski about it because he would be able to answer my questions on this subject.

The other encouraging thing is that Obsidian is rarely, if ever, creating monsters dynamically. Obsidian has one blueprint instance for each creature in the toolset. And then they have, who knows how many painted instances of this blueprint, with variations galore in each area, depending on what the developer needed for a particular area. But none of this is being done dynamically. This is extremely inefficient, which is good news for PW builders who know how to create monsters and add properties to them dynamically.

Dynamic scripting means fewer creature blueprints, fewer item blueprints, and therefore smaller module size. Anyone who uses dynamic scripting will be able to have a larger persistent world than an equivalent builder who does not use dynamic scripting and paints gazillions of monsters in their module.

I'd love to hear what the Devs say about this particular issue. It potentially has a great benefit for multiplayer. I hope I'm right about being able to reduce the size of modules through dynamic scripting and using scripting to spawn monsters instead of painting triggers for them.

Skill Point Saving
I mentioned earlier that I was so excited about being able to spend my fighter skill points on rogue skills for my multiclass build that I completely forgot to check about skill point saving. I was wondering if it was still true about being able to level up only if we had 0 or 1 skill points remaining.

Ryan suggested we test it quickly before I took off for the night. We loaded up the character creation screen, created a Tiefling Barbarian with 10 intelligence and spent no skill points at level 1. Then at level 2 we had 10 skill points to spend. So you can horde your skill points all you want.

I noticed that at level one you spend your skill points before you choose your feats. Therefore, if you choose Able Learner as a feat, it won't apply to your cross-class skills until second level. But considering you can save all the skill points you want, you can save any you might have spent at level 1 on cross-class skills until level 2 when Able Learner will have kicked in.

Or, maybe Obsidian will change the order of events when you level up.

Graphics
I did not take a bunch of pictures of models. I was mainly interested in the game mechanics, but I was a huge skeptic before I actually saw the game in action.

Please remember that my pictures have been distorted by two lenses. One from the computer display, which bends the corners badly, and another distortion from my camera lense. My pictures don't do justice to how good everything really looks.

I was a critic before, but not any longer. The graphics are superb.

Pimping looks
I don't recall which Dev. mentioned it, but the model with the hat, looks pretty good.

Scaling
Before it was my turn to play, I was watching this 14 year old kid who had scaled a golem to something beyond enormous. He had a regular dwarf painted next to the golem and the top of the dwarf's head didn't reach halfway up the golem's foot. You can scale anything to just about any size you could possibly need. This isn't anything new really. I should have taken a picture of that golem and the dwarf though. It was pretty funny.

Tinting and Color Changing
I watched Ryan showing people how to tint and change colors on monsters and buildings in the toolset. I got to thinking, on the drive home, about something that I should have asked him. The dragon's wings are not shown in the toolset. If we tint the body, do the wings stay the original color or will they automatically be changed to match the rest of the body. I know it's a silly question, but since you can't see them in the toolset, I thought I'd ask, just to verify. Is there some way to tint the wings one color and the body a different color?

Video1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EprlsJ5BwCU
Video2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfi0Ro8xOXk
Video3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv58TUy4u-4
Video4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P00lZbnutnE
Video5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19px1YC4Xpw

These videos are all of the Keep that Lord Nasher gives you. In them you see a whole bunch of different Undead creatures attacking your keep. You have an army of defenders appear in your party bar on the right hand side of the screen and you see the siege equipment landing on your keep's walls as you attempt to throw the defenders down, kill them, and destroy the siege equipment. It's really quite cool.

An excellent and VERY thorough accounting of the visit. Thanks, cdaulepp!