Neverwinter Nights Forum Update

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(Originally posted by Darien)

Here's another shot of comments from the developers on the official Neverwinter Nights message boards.

Trent Oster, Producer:

Release Date: We did very well at the last two E3 show, winning a variety of awards. The team has no desire to repeat at E3 a third time. We are pushing as hard as possible to finish the game a soon as possible. We are targeting this winter for release.

Project Update: I'll get an update together for you fellows as soon as I have a free moment.

Brent Knowles, Co-Lead Designer:

Dialogue Scripts: The scripts in the conversation editor can pretty much do anything the scripting language supports. You can check to see if the PC talking to the creature is an elf, or has a strength of 15 or is of evil alignment. You can check what items they have in their inventory, who likes them, who hates them, what plot variables have been set. And that's just the fairly simple stuff.

During the conversation you can have the NPC do all kinds of things as well: move around, set plot variables, give the players items, take items away and so on.

Bob McCabe, Writing & Design:

More on Dialogue Scripts: I'm not sure that I understand your question... but...

Each line of dialogue may have a script attached to the start and finish of that individual line.

The starting script determines whether or not that line of dialogue should fire. For example, I might have three separate "greetings" that the NPC might issue when a player initiates. Depending on the script, only one of those 3 will fire.

An example would be a before, during & after dialogue. If the quest has not been triggered, then say, "I have a quest you might enjoy hearing about." If the quest has been triggered, then say, "What? Didn't you understand me? How many times do I have to explain this quest to you?" If the quest has been finished, then say, "Ah, you've returned for your reward, no doubt."

Of course, it needn't be only the initial greeting. I could have a character ask, "So tell me, can I trust you?" The PC could say yes or no, and depending upon his answer, the NPC would check the conditions on his possible answers, and then pick the one that works.

The script attached to the end of the line of dialogue would be used more for actions. For example, a character might speak a line, walk to a waypoint, and then say another line. Or, a character might start a conversation, and then increment a global. The next time that the NPC is spoken to, he might say, "Oh, back again?" before launching into his typical spiel.

Cord Grimwinder-8d, Interplaygames.com Moderator:

CRPG Limitations: The whole "why can't I blast any wall" type scenario, which touches on the entire reason you don't see many "esoteric" spells/skills in CRPGs to this day. It's because the more "open" and "esoteric" you make it the more complex the coding has to be and the higher the resource minimums.

In the case of the wall you have to include several rather resource intensive features to support it correctly- a) a physics model to handle the explosion, b) modeling and physics for all the fragments of wall just created, each of which must be tracked now by the engine, c) what's on the other side of said wall, d)the much more complex story line options created by allowing new paths to be created by blasting down walls that the DM/Storyteller/Game Designer must now institute, and e) the more complex pathfinding now created by all the new paths and the new piles of rubble.

Similar problems exist in pretty much any more "open" system. The mind can imagine Wish and it's results fairly easily, getting that same flexibility into code is another bear altogether.