Neverwinter Nights 2: NWN 2: MotB Interview with Kevin Saunders

Firing Squad has posted an interview with NWN 2: MotB lead developer, Kevin Saunders. There's some good information about a new gameplay system that was developed with the Wizards of the Coast folks:

FiringSquad: What other new features will the expansion pack have?

Kevin Saunders: There's one major gameplay system that we've developed with Wizards of the Coast. It's not something from D&D, but it's D&D flavored. This new feature has both combat and conversation implications and is intimately tied into the story and characters. We'll be releasing more information in the near future.

We implemented many other new features, most of which are to further polish the NWN2 experience for both the player and for the content creator using the toolset. For example, we added the ability to use any 2D graphic as a custom portrait for creatures instead of the automatically generated 3D portraits.

And, of course, we added a lot on the gameplay side, including over 50 new spells, over 50 new feats, new items, crafting system enhancements, etc.

FiringSquad: Will there be any graphical improvements made for the expansion pack?

Kevin Saunders: Absolutely. We learned a lot throughout the course of NWN2 and have been able to apply that experience to get even more out of the graphics engine. The environments, creatures - all of it is stunning. NX1 looks like it got a major graphics upgrade over NWN2, but the system requirements are the same. In fact, we completed a lot of optimization in the first couple updates to NWN2, so NX1 will both look better and run more smoothly than NWN2 did at launch. We have made some technical improvements to the graphics engine as well, including improved specularity and more advanced sky boxes.