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The Toolset allows users to create their own content in the form of modules and environments for use in their own games.
4.01 I've heard that the Aurora Neverwinter Toolset will be Windows only. What's the deal?
Our initial goal was to create a cross platform toolset for the gaming community. However, we have encountered difficulty in obtaining a viable cross platform solution to assist us in porting the Aurora Neverwinter Toolset. While we would not like to rule out the possibility of a port to the various operating systems at some point, this won't be happening for the initial release.
4.02 How easy will it be to create my own module, and how powerful will the editors be?
Very easy. Very powerful. We are dedicated to making our Aurora Neverwinter Toolset as intuitive and easy to use as possible. You can draw from our extensive libraries of pre-existing content or feel free to create your own. All buildings, terrain, and dungeon spaces, for instance, can be painted down using intuitive and context-sensitive tile paintbrushes. At the same time, our powerful, in-house scripting language allows you to weave your stories and create characters that behave in an intelligent fashion (this includes engaging in fully customizable conversations and dialog chains that you create). You will even be able to create new creatures and items based on templates provided for your convenience!
4.03 Can I translate my favorite Pen and Paper module or homemade campaign into a Neverwinter Nights module?
Yes, we expect the Aurora Neverwinter Toolset to be powerful enough to recreate most home campaigns and classic modules. While you may not be able to faithfully recreate every trap in The Tomb of Horrors and we may not have models for this or that exact monster or terrain type, the Aurora Neverwinter Toolset should be able to create an easily recognizable facsimile of that special tale or imaginary world you've grown to love, whatever it may be. Additionally, we hope to release additional art content once we have shipped the original game thus making more and more things possible over the course of time.
Think of a campaign as a novel: a large, epic story that spans numerous single adventures and ties them together into a cohesive and meaningful whole. Neverwinter Nights will ship with the Official Campaign, developed here at BioWare, that includes over 60 hours of gameplay.
As with the Baldur's Gate series, the Neverwinter Nights story will be broken down into basic chapters that follow each other in a linear fashion. Within each chapter, however, you will be able to play in a non-linear fashion, picking and choosing which individual quest you want to play and when. Each chapter will conclude with a special climax. When you complete it, you will be allowed to embark on the next chapter of your adventure.
The basic unit of Neverwinter Nights is the module. It contains all of the information required for a game session: areas, creatures, items, dialog, scripts, etc. We hope to include some non-campaign modules that are structured for competitive play in addition to our campaign modules. Modules can be turned to other uses, as well. Creators of a multi-module persistent world, for instance, may choose to treat their modules as geographical regions rather than as an individual adventure.
As in the Baldur's Gate series, we have separated the game map into a series of individual areas. Each module can contain multiple areas and each area can reach a maximum size of 32x32 tiles. This is significantly larger than the areas used for Baldur's Gate and it can take several minutes for your character to walk from one side to the other. Areas do not have to be square, but you are limited to a maximum of 32 tiles per side. You could, for instance, make an area with dimensions of 8x15 tiles.
The areas in Neverwinter Nights are composed of individual tiles, each one 10x10 meters in size. This tile-based terrain system has a number of significant advantages over the use of arbitrary mesh. From a purely technical standpoint, it significantly decreases load times, minimizes bandwidth usage, and optimizes pathfinding while in-game. From an artistic perspective, any map you create will look good and make sense because the tiles automatically line up and fit together while you work. From an ease-of-use perspective, it allows you to paint down your areas in a matter of minutes, freeing your time for important role-playing elements like story, dialog, and scripting.
A tileset is a group of individual tiles that interact with each other and fit together in logical ways. In order to better manage texture memory, the toolset will only allow for a single tileset per area. A basic list of the tilesets is as follows:
Multi-Height Tilesets (includes height transitions, bodies of water, buildings, curtain walls, bridges, docks, impassables, and other set-specific features):
Single-Height Tilesets (includes a variety of passable and impassable tiles suitable to its theme):
Interior Tilesets (includes a variety of tile subsets based on different room types, some pre-defined mini-rooms, and corridor connectors to link them all together):
4.10 Is the source material for the official campaign going to be made available to the public?
Yes, it will be possible to load all of the modules from the official campaign into the Aurora Neverwinter Toolset. Not only will you be able to see exactly how we made them, you will also be able to make your own alterations and even export different components for use in your own modules. With Neverwinter Nights, we want to open up our process and make it as transparent as possible to our end users.
4.11 Will we be able to add plug-in's to the Aurora Neverwinter Toolset?
We have no current plans to support 3rd party extensions to the Aurora Neverwinter Toolset.
4.12 Will I be able to sell custom modules or charge for playing on my server in Neverwinter Nights?
For the most part, the End User License Agreement will prohibit the selling of modules and the charging for server access.
4.13 What music file format will Neverwinter Nights support?
Neverwinter Nights uses MP3s for its music files. There are no restrictions on the bitrate of the MP3s that you can use, but keep in mind, the higher the rate, the greater the performance hit your computer will take. There will be no audio editors included with Neverwinter Nights.
