Neversummer Realms Forums

I'm going to PAX this weekend. Bioware will be there showing off Dragon Age: Origins and Obsidian Entertainment (developers of NWN2) will be there. If you have some questions for either Bioware or Obsidian Entertainment, please post them here and I will do my best to get them answered.

Questions for Bioware

Lokey from the NS Community: Is Dragon Age: Origins terrain editable in the toolset or do you need an external package like 3d Studio Max to edit it? If so, will plugins be provided?

Alban from the NWN2 Community: Will the DA:O toolset allow the use of community generated plugins?

Jau from the NWN2 Community: Does Bioware have any plans to make another multiplayer game that comes with a toolset and DM client like NWN1?

Kaedrin from the NWN2 Community: How customizable and extensible are the classes, feats, abilities, etc in Dragon Age: Origins? Are these things easily modified in the toolset or are they "hard coded" into the game engine like NWN1 was?

Alban from the NWN2 Community: Is the Dragon Age: Origins scripting system an enhanced version of nwscript or completely new?

Questions for Obsidian Entertainment

Kaedrin from the NWN2 Community: Will SoZ introduce instant feats (free actions) like NWN1 did in patch 1.6x?

Senalaya from the NWN2 Community: Will the D&D 4th Ed. based successor to the NWN series be announced during E3 2009?

You know, the usual for Obsidian. Instant feats are high up on the list, since we hak it isn't that bad as we could sneak something through a gui, but would be nice. ActivatePortal() obviously. Networking fixes (especially those recommended by Skywing) in the server exe... Item material types settable and gettable from script. You know, the things we always complain about.

I should keep a list handy

Why is some stuff hard coded and other stuff not?

Lorkar, is that a question for Bioware or Obsidian, or both?

With one clenched fist shaking at the heavens and a sweating,furrowed brow, he grasped his quill and...

I'm off to PAX, I'll check this thread again tomorrow morning to see if there are any new questions. Keep them coming!

I guess it is towards Bioware, since I have limited knowledge of Obsidians structure. Although I am sure they have some things hard coded as well.

They've been better about it than Bio and have opened up a lot of stuff. Mostly the combat stuff is still pretty hardcoded.

Reminds me of assignable script sets, if that worked as advertised (included actively controlled players), there'd be many less headaches.

Its cool that you're doing this Cely. Just another example of the degree of dedication that the NS has to providing a quality product. Have fun and travel safe.

- Glow -

PAX Day 1

PAX seems twice as big as it was last year. There are insane amounts of Exhibitors, Panels, and of course... attendees. Intel parked a truck trailer in the exhibition hall, Bethesda built a trailer park, Gamecock built an arcade, and Bioware built a freakin' CASTLE.

Anyway, onto some interesting stuff:

All of the OEI folks I met were super nice, Matthew (Marketing/PR), Chris Avellone (Co-founder/Creative Director), and Joe Bulock (Cinematics Designer). There were a few more OEI folks there like Annie Carlson (Designer), Fryda Wolf (Sound Engineer), and Dan Rubalcaba (Programmer) but I didn't get a chance to talk to them one on one.

So here's some of the Q&A with Chris Avellone which might be of interest to the Neversummer and NWN2 Communities. Keep in mind I am paraphrasing from memory because I (stupidly) didn't bring any type of recording device for the questions.

Q) Would Obsidian Entertainment be interested if Atari wanted to work with them on a game based on D&D 4th Edition?
A) Chris Avellone: Yes, definitely. We've had a great relationship with Atari.

Q) Has Atari approached Obsidian yet about a 4th Edition game?
A) Chris Avellone: No.

Q) Will there be a third expansion pack for NWN2?
A) Chris Avellone: Maybe.

Q) If there is a third expansion pack for NWN2, will the level cap be raised?
A) Chris Avellone: Probably, it's definitely one of the features that players like to have in an expansion pack.

Q) Would it be raised to 40 like NWN1 was or something higher?
A) Chris Avellone: It's hard to say, obviously for some games like World of Warcraft, it's easy to pick a new level cap because of their game mechanics.

Q) Will Obsidian Entertainment ever make another multiplayer game that comes with a toolset and a dm client?
A) Chris Avellone: Probably not, these types of games are very complicated, time consuming, and expensive to make.

I asked Chris Avellone about instant feats being added with NWN2 Storm of Zehir. He didn't know since he's working on other projects right now. None of the other OEI folks at PAX were working on SoZ except for Annie Carlson, but Mr. Avellone didn't think Annie Carlson (Designer on SoZ) would know either since she focuses mostly on the writing side of things. I tried to catch Ms. Carlson and ask her some questions, but her schedule was very busy so I didn't get a chance.

Again, I am paraphrasing from memory so accuracy is not guaranteed (sorry folks).

EDIT: I incorrectly stated that Adam Brennecke was a panelist. It was not Adam Brennecke, instead it was Dan Rubalcaba that attended the panel. I have corrected this mistake in the post and I apologize for the error. -cely Sept 3, 2008

PAX Day 2

I still haven't been able to corner any of the Bioware folks, nor see the Dragon Age presentation inside their fortress, which is pictured here:



However, I ran into Annie Carlson (OEI Designer) and boy was I glad I did. We had a good long chat about NWN2 Storm of Zehir. These are the things I learned from Ms. Carlson:

1) There will definitely be three new tilesets and perhaps four.
2) One of the new tilesets is a fusion of Indonesian and Moroccan architecture.
3) The Overland Map system is multiplayer friendly.
4) The Overland Map graphics have been optimized so that you can have quite large Overland Maps.
5) The Storm of Zehir single player campaign is full of very imaginative story lines.
6) New item icons.
7) New clothing, robes, etc.
8) Watching the Megaraptor stomp through the jungle is *really* cool.
9) Dinosaur Companions!



If anyone ever has a chance to talk to Annie Carlson, I encourage you to do so. She was super nice and very enthusiastic about NWN2 and its fans.

PAX Day 3

The last day of PAX and I finally made it inside the Dragon Age booth. First some pictures:




Jay Watamaniuk (Community Manager) was the presenter, Scott Meadows (Senior Programmer) did the driving behind the PC during the presentation. Chris Priestly (Community Communications Coordinator) and Jason Barlow (Community Production Coordinator) mainly acted as the "bouncers" herding rabid fans into the castle and keeping the others at bay when the castle reached capacity. The Dragon Age booth really was topnotch and easily outclassed all of the other booths at PAX (yes, even the ones with "Booth Babes"). Anyway, onto the good stuff...

The presentation showed off how much detail the Bioware folks have put into the Dragon Age world. Not just graphically, but also with the writing. Elves in Dragon Age are considered to be second class citizens and are usually nothing more than slaves and servants. This is reflected in game by the way NPCs interact with other NPCs as well as with the player. For example, Scott Meadows used a Human Noble PC to talk to a Quartermaster NPC, who spoke to the PC with the utmost respect. Scott then used an Elven Mage PC to talk to the same Quartermaster NPC. The Quartermaster immediately started yelling at her demanding to know why she had been taking so long gathering supplies and asked her why she was wearing such a ridiculous outfit (her mage robes). So expect to have quite a different gaming experience depending on what type of character you choose to play.

The bulk of the presentation was centered around the events leading up to and during the epic battle as seen in the E3 Trailer. All of the footage from the E3 trailer (and then some) was shown in game and it was spectacular. It was at least a hundred times better than the Keep Battle in NWN2. I will try to describe a few of the things that stuck out to me during the presentation:

1) The Facial Animations were amazing. Lots of detail here, eyebrows arching, truly dynamic lip animations, eyes didn't look "dead".
2) Speaking of the eyes, you can see a little bit of glint in the eyes. Sometimes it was a bit harsh - but overall the effect was well done.
3) Fingers animate individually (in the in game cutscenes) - something for Community Modelers/Animators to take advantage of.
4) Teeth looked dirty, some NPCs were even missing a tooth or two (no doubt lost in battle).
5) Wind affects torch and campfire flames (this might just be a fixed visual effect that looks like it's blowing sideways in the wind).
6) Blood splatters persist on characters' faces, armor, shields during and after combat.
7) The Flame Weapon spell looks AWESOMETASTIC. I find it odd that I got really excited about Flame Weapon, but seriously - it was that awesome. The flames looked great and there were some heat shimmer effects... just wow.
8) The Ogre's Knockdown ability sends beautifully rendered shockwaves through the surrounding area.
9) Combat seems very kinetic. It's as if weapons and shields are actually making contact and exchanging kinetic energy.
10) Area transition load times seemed really fast.

Now onto the Toolset Presentation. After several agonizing minutes of audio problems, Chris Priestly introduced Fernando Melo (Producer) and Ferret Baudoin (Senior Designer). Fernando narrated while Ferret ran the toolset. First some (fuzzy) pictures, then my observations:










1) Script filenames ended with .nss - so I'm assuming that they're using an enhanced version of nwscript.
2) All of the other filename extensions we're familiar with were being used: .are, .utc, .utp, etc.
3) You can rotate placeables on any axis (makes it easier to place objects on hills realistically).
4) There was a category in the toolset called "Stages" - I really have no clue what it's for, but it sounded interesting.
5) The "Head Morphs" Editor seemed pretty robust - No need for Community Modelers/Animators to create custom heads. Joe Average can do it now with the toolset.
6) You can apply facial tattoos and blend together different tattoo "channels" - fade them in/out and blend different colors.
7) The Plot Script Editor makes it a easy to design and implement quests.
8) There are Visual Effects and Audio Editors, unfortunately they were not shown during the presentation.
9) 20,000 Darkspawn were killed in the making of the Toolset Presentation (direct quote from Fernando Melo).
10) The toolset will be released in beta form BEFORE Dragon Age ships to a limited number of Community Members (similar to NWN1's toolset release schedule). Fernando said folks should get on the WorldBuilder's Mailing List to get invited to the Toolset Beta.


And to wrap things up:

1) Dragon Age was announced as a Trilogy (it was news to me, but then again I haven't been keeping up on Dragon Age news very well).
2) Future Dragon Age games depend *heavily* on how well Dragon Age: Origins sales go (duh).
3) There will probably be console games based on the Dragon Age world, which will be tailored to each console.
4) Bioware has no plans to create another Multiplayer/Toolset/DM Client game like NWN1 at this time.

Thanks for reading and I hope some folks find this information somewhat useful. If anyone needs anything clarified, please ask and I will do my best to answer your questions.

I've been very fortunate to have the opportunity to get some more Storm of Zehir questions answered by Obsidian's Rob McGinnis.

Q) Are there any new head variations in SoZ (besides Yuan-ti Pureblood and Gray Orc)?
A) We do have some plans to add some new heads to the game for players to use. It is not a guaranteed thing at this point and, if they do get added, they would likely be added in a patch after SoZ is released.

Q) Will ActivatePortal() be fixed in SoZ?
A) This is something we have talked about many times, internally. It is definitely something our lead programmer and I would like to do, the problem is finding the time to do it.

Q) How many new tree types are in SoZ?
A) We have added approximately 30 new trees.

Q) Will SoZ introduce instant feats (free actions) like NWN1 did in patch 1.6x?
A) I do not believe we did.

Thanks Rob!