Neverwinter Nights 2: But Is It REALLY Neverwinter Nights 2?

Here are a few comments in the thread.

J.E. Sawyer:

I think it's amazing that on an hourly basis, threads shift from calling NWN2 "NWN1.5" to "a whole new game".

Sorry that you don't like the toolset, Lycius, but a lot (not all, but a great deal) of the changes that were made to it and the data formats were made at the request of builders and modders.

Typical complaints about NWN1's toolset/visuals:

* Character models look simple and dated.
* Exterior environments look like artificial flat plains and Lego-blocks.
* Limited control over placeables (including buildings and trees) within a tile.
* Lack of tinting and scaling on objects.
* Inability to have a variety of tabs with multiple maps/scripts/conversations open at the same time.

We did things to address those complaints, but they came with a number of costs:

* Character models are complex and have a lot of maps on them to support normals, specular highlights, and up to three tint values.
* Exterior environments require sculpting and painting. Short of developing an entirely new tile system specifically for outdoor maps, heightmapping tools seemed an obvious choice.
* Placing objects requires a lot of fine manipulation. If things aren't snapped, they have to be manually manipulated. It's a direct trade-off.
* "Undo" in a multi-tabbed, multi-windowed app like the NWN2 toolset isn't an easy thing to implement.

This doesn't mean that the NWN2 is user-friendly. But what I hope it does illustrate is that we didn't "forget" the NWN community when developing the toolset. It was developed specifically with many of the above complaints from the community in mind. As for what plug-ins can do, in a lot of cases, they can make building faster. They can make UIs more intuitive. Users in the toolset beta wrote plug-ins that made a new (and awesome) store interface, a plug-in to read heightmapping data from an image, a plug-in to randomly distribute trees across environments, and so on.

Plug-ins can't solve everything, and we never viewed the community as a solution to user-friendliness problems with the toolset, but the community is going ahead and doing it anyway.

Lycius:

Thanks for the detailed reply, seriously.

It's not that I don't like the new toolset. On the contrarey, I LOVE what it is capable of doing. It's just so ridiculously complex for someone who isn't a professional designer that it makes my brain start to misfire.

What I don't understand, is the idea that the community at large asked for these changes. The actual professional caliber part of the community has GOT to be a serious minority. Based on previous precedents set by Atari etc... the minority is usually ignored.

I will admit that I started checking out some of the plugins and they go a LONG way towards making this thing less mind scrambling. I will admit ignorance to the level of alteration a plugin can accomplish. Thus, I am giving it one more shot, with some plugins installed.

My real concerns are my complete inability to figure out HTF to make a damned item and why we can't get a solid answer on the TRX/TRN/Massive file size concerns.

Does the ENTIRE bloated module load to RAM or is the toolset file ignored? You guys HAVE to have the answer to that question, unless you've never tested the OC.

With Atari's future in obvious jeopardy, I am terrified that I'll dedicate a tremendous amount of time on NWN2 only to have it dropped like a bad habit by Atari in 3 months.

For the love of god, PLEASE get us some wizards or some in depth tutorials on item and creature creation.

Shane:

With Atari's future in obvious jeopardy, I am terrified that I'll dedicate a tremendous amount of time on NWN2 only to have it dropped like a bad habit by Atari in 3 months.

I've tried to answer this concern before but perhaps I should address it again. While in theory it's not an invalid concern I dont think it's one that really should make anyone lose sleep at night. Or stop them from enjoying NWN2 to its full potential.

Why?

Well lets be honest here, Atari is the 3rd computer game company in the last 20 years to make D&D video games. Neverwinter Nights is THE premier electronic D&D franchise. Period! While Baldurs Gate holds an exceptional amount of credibilty and prestige the NWN franchise is the most played electronic D&D game in the world. Regardless of what happens with Atari or whomever has the license to make electronic D&D games, Neverwinter Nights is a AAA franchise, with AAA development talent attached to it. No one is going to kick it to the curb and just drop it in three months.

My point is that people need to stop worrying about Atari and just enjoy the game and have fun with it. It's not going away any time soon.

-Shane

Interesting...keep your eyes peeled to this spot.