Neverwinter Nights 2: NWN 2: Mysteries of Westgate Developer Diary 3

RPG Vault has posted the third in their series of developer diaries for the upcoming "adventure pack" for Neverwinter Nights 2. This time, developers focus on new creatures, a custom tileset, audio enhancements and toolset additions:

Ossian made extensive use of the plugin technology in the NWN2 toolset to develop Mysteries of Westgate. Long before development began, we integrated our source code control system, Subversion, into the toolset. This level of integration allowed multiple designers to work in the same game resources without conflict (which was always problematic in NWN1). We also added a spellchecker to help with the lengthy process of editing conversations, journals and blueprints, as well as a collection of small tools affectionately called PowerBar, which did everything from interior area rotation, to searching for just about any type of resource file. We also snuck a few much needed toolset UI changes into the mix.

As our development proceeded, the toolset plugin interface became more than just our own little toolset construction kit. We also used it to perform various batch operations, such as automatically tweaking the properties of every conversation in the game, or generating a list of plot items for our QA team. It even became a kind of scripting language for automating repetitive tasks, such as the generation of lip-synch data directly from game conversation files. With the power afforded by NWN2's toolset plugin system, development of NWN2 products at Ossian has definitely been made easier and more efficient, and we continue to add to our plugin library for the future.

Sounds like there will be some nice new toys for builders.