Atrokkus
Erudite
Today, January 27th, at 6:00 pm PST, Warcry.com held a live irc Q&A with Obsidian, namely:
- Ferret Baudoin (lead designer)
- Chris Avellone (creative director)
- Charles Mead (lead scripter)
- John Morgan (associate producer)
- Darren monahan (Senior Producer)
- Frank Kowalkowski (lead programmer)
- Tramel "T.Ray"l Isaac (lead artist)
Unfortunately, however, Chris Avellone, for some reason, could not attend the chat, and was replaced with Adam Brennecke (programmer). A real shame, it is.
But MCA's abscence aside, the event turned out just fine. I mean, as fine as any big developer devchat can be: nothing much informative, just a friendly chatter, some minor details and promises. However, some more relevant questions did emerge from the torrents of "fear in character's blue eyes" shit.
The Q&A was conducted in a not-so-live fashion: you state your question to the "QuestionTaker" and he forwards it to a separate dev-only channel, where they (devs) basically pick the easiest one. I'm not particularily disappointed with that, because before and after that "official" part of Q&A we had an ample opportunity to make them spill the beans that they decided to keep sacked at the official logged part.
Here's a short summary (WarCry will post the "official" log in short order) of relevant and/or amusing Q&A/one-liners:
[OE]TramellI my first name is Tramell
Blank FERRET OMG ROOFLES!!!1111!! (and that's not Vollourn!)
Drathlin IS OVULATION WHEN THE FEMALE RELEASES AN EGG AND IT GOES DOWN THE WOMB?
Pender ...
metallix|rpgplanet-ru YES
[OE]DarrenM ...
Artevere676 would you ever consider making a Fallout type (aka wasteland) RPG based off the NWN 2 engine?
[OE]DarrenM Artevere676: Hell yeah!
Salvator: Will the single player Arcs be more dynamic? Playing Evil was not very... evil in the first game.
[OE]TramellI woot
[OE]DarrenM I think the question is, will playing good be fun in NWN2?
[OE]FerretB There is a place for evil all right. It's not all murdering poor widows, many ranges of mean and malicious choices. Some of the design team worries me from some of their ideas.
[OE]FerretB I think we're shooting for more malevolent than psycotic, generally. It can also be quite fun - hee hee.
[OE]DarrenM Frank says the engine doesn't support evil. Hmmm.
Benjamin: A long time ago, it was mentioned that one of Obsidians goals was to create less but more detailed NPC's. Now that the project is further down the track, is this still the general goal, and how is it panning out?
[OE]FerretB That sounded good on paper. It really did. But we also want to make it feel like a world. What we wound up with is a series of important recurring NPCs intermingled with many other people.
[OE]FerretB The upshot is that you'll get to know some people really well, and you'll see them at many points during the game. But there is a host of bit characters, too.
BigBottom: I realise music is about the last thing to be completed on a game, but who would be your ideal person for the job?
[OE]DarrenM Tramell says either PDiddy or Dr. Dre
Here's my only question that passed through in the "official" part:
metallix|rpgplanet-ru: How will be monsters and encounters placed throughout the game map, in scaling difficulty, or randomly, as in Gothic?
[OE]FerretB We make a lot of use of the encounter system to tailor an encounter based off of the party itself. But we also have a lot of specifically placed critters and beasties for a fight with some more TLC involved.
[OE]FerretB So a combination, really - but it won't be crazy random.
// I misphrased it a bit, i meant placement of monsters without gradual difficulty progression, without leading player by the hand. That, of course, was one of my least important questions, but oh well.
Kirottu: Will the frequence of actions affect chaos/order axis? I mean, if you do something really good and right after it do something really evil, do you get chaos points?
[OE]FerretB The alignment system won't keep track of stuff like that. But we have a lot of alignment checks. A surprising amount of real good law/chaos choices through the game, too.
SteveThaiBinh: In a recent survey of British schoolteachers, a majority said that commercial computer games had educational benefits for children and could even be used in classrooms. What will the player of NWN2 learn, and have you thought about preparing notes to help parents or teachers exploit the game's educational value?
[OE]CharlesM If they like it enough and open the toolset, they may learn to be game developers!
[OE]FerretB Personally, I found RPGs seriously educational in my life - no joke.
[OE]FerretB Especially when I was a kid, taught me stuff about literature, medieval times (although watered down), and more. RPGs also can make you have to crack open the dictionary when you're a kid.
xXNightElfXx: What can you customize on your character? I.e. Blue eyes, green hair, black skin, strong, ect?
[OE]DarrenM With our new "Tinting Technology(tm)(R)", you can do some really cool stuff. For example, our hair color supports two tints, so you can make it brown with gray highlights. You can customize the skin color, scale of the character's body, hair, facial hair and more
[OE]DarrenM Frank sez we support per-pixel level tinting. That sounds really cool, but not really sure what that means
[OE]DarrenM We also have a mohawk as a hair choice. I know I know, maybe played out, but hey. It looks cool. Also we have ethnic features for heads as well.
Wulf I am an "Older" player and I don't often grasp the full potential of the games I play. Will NWN2 be a good game for those of us who are not looking to rule the world but want to still have fun running around looking for things and killing small animals in the forest?
[OE]FerretB There's plenty of story in NWN2, but we try to be cognizant that some folks want to get to the killing. So on the design side of the fence we try and make sure you can "cut to the chase" and get to the action. But hopefully the cinematic cutscenes and writing will rope you in. Hee hee.
That's the end of official part (there were more questions, of course, but most of them were concerning fancy gfx and toolset, you'll read it in the official transcript)
Now the afterparty:
Llyranor what happened to MCA
(((((
[OE]AdamB MCA is working
// mystary revealed!
metallix|rpgplanet-ru Will dialogs feature descriptive sentences, as in Planescape: Torment? If not, then will the graphic engine allow for more complex facial expressions (both for PC and NPCs)?
[OE]DarrenM metallix: Yup
[OE]DarrenM metallix: We'll let you set emotions on a per node basis
metallix|rpgplanet-ru DO YOU HAVE SOIL EROSION!!?!?!?!
[OE]DarrenM Soil erosion? Of course! Isn't that standard in RPG's since like 1997?
Benjamin Will it be available in diskette?
[OE]DarrenM It ships on 4,106,122 floppies.
metallix|rpgplanet-ru teh hard one: Are you arranging things with Russian companies to localize it in Russia and CIS?
[OE]DarrenM metallix: Hmmm don't know. Good Atari question
Shadowstrider Darren, did you ever successfully quit smoking? (This is *so* NWN2 related)
[OE]DarrenM Shadow: Yes, I did! After leaving Black Isle, I haven't touched the stuff.
///yaa, I knew that BIS was teh root of evil
metallix|rpgplanet-ru are the story/dialog finialized?
[OE]DarrenM meallix: Yep
metallix|rpgplanet-ru Will you try to incorporate grappling, charge, bullrush, and other special attacks/maneuvers?
[OE]DarrenM metallix: Sorry Met, dunno that one
metallix|rpgplanet-ru Do you feel yourselves constrained somewhat by the publishers and other (economical) factors?
[OE]DarrenM metallix: Sometimes to be honest, but it's all about how you build your relationships throughout the project
metallix|rpgplanet-ru ARe you involved in any indie-projects, or do you plan to?
[OE]DarrenM metallix: I so wanted to be on an Ultima Online Free Server project, but yeah... no time.
metallix|rpgplanet-ru now a very trick one: Do you enjoy doing Bioware-started projects, or are you more interested in doing your original game?
[OE]DarrenM metallix: It's funny I don't really think of it that way so much - It's really exciting to work on NWN2, even if BioWare hadn't made the first. We're currently working on a new IP game right now too
metallix|rpgplanet-ru IS NWN2 More nVidia-biased, or ATI?
[OE]DarrenM metallix: Neither
Artevere neither, Metallix
metallix|rpgplanet-ru okay
[OE]DarrenM metallix: It's all DX shader language
[OE]AdamB metallix: neither
metallix|rpgplanet-ru good to hear that
[OE]DarrenM We run great on both cards
Llyranor neither, metallix
// that was damn funny, with all those echoing responses... well, considering that I echo my own question for n times every time (in order to be actually heard in this flood-fest), it's acceptable i guess ^_^
metallix|rpgplanet-ru DOES NWN2 HAVE PATRICK STEWARTT??!?!
[OE]DarrenM NO!
righ darn
metallix|rpgplanet-ru IF YOU EVER COME TO KAZAKHSTAN, DRINKS ARE ON ME OKAYYY
[OE]DarrenM metallix: Sweet
Syrsuro So how WILL inventory work?
[OE]DarrenM Did you play Icewind Dale 2?
metallix|rpgplanet-ru meh
[OE]DarrenM
And then i had to go, and I guess devs followed not long after. If anyone has some more quotes, cough 'em up.
I could, of course, post the entire log, but damn that would choke this thread up (btw, how about "hide"-"click to view" feature?).
EDIT: Here's the post-log from Warcry.com
- Ferret Baudoin (lead designer)
- Chris Avellone (creative director)
- Charles Mead (lead scripter)
- John Morgan (associate producer)
- Darren monahan (Senior Producer)
- Frank Kowalkowski (lead programmer)
- Tramel "T.Ray"l Isaac (lead artist)
Unfortunately, however, Chris Avellone, for some reason, could not attend the chat, and was replaced with Adam Brennecke (programmer). A real shame, it is.
But MCA's abscence aside, the event turned out just fine. I mean, as fine as any big developer devchat can be: nothing much informative, just a friendly chatter, some minor details and promises. However, some more relevant questions did emerge from the torrents of "fear in character's blue eyes" shit.
The Q&A was conducted in a not-so-live fashion: you state your question to the "QuestionTaker" and he forwards it to a separate dev-only channel, where they (devs) basically pick the easiest one. I'm not particularily disappointed with that, because before and after that "official" part of Q&A we had an ample opportunity to make them spill the beans that they decided to keep sacked at the official logged part.
Here's a short summary (WarCry will post the "official" log in short order) of relevant and/or amusing Q&A/one-liners:
[OE]TramellI my first name is Tramell
Blank FERRET OMG ROOFLES!!!1111!! (and that's not Vollourn!)
Drathlin IS OVULATION WHEN THE FEMALE RELEASES AN EGG AND IT GOES DOWN THE WOMB?
Pender ...
metallix|rpgplanet-ru YES
[OE]DarrenM ...
Artevere676 would you ever consider making a Fallout type (aka wasteland) RPG based off the NWN 2 engine?
[OE]DarrenM Artevere676: Hell yeah!
Salvator: Will the single player Arcs be more dynamic? Playing Evil was not very... evil in the first game.
[OE]TramellI woot
[OE]DarrenM I think the question is, will playing good be fun in NWN2?
[OE]FerretB There is a place for evil all right. It's not all murdering poor widows, many ranges of mean and malicious choices. Some of the design team worries me from some of their ideas.
[OE]FerretB I think we're shooting for more malevolent than psycotic, generally. It can also be quite fun - hee hee.
[OE]DarrenM Frank says the engine doesn't support evil. Hmmm.
Benjamin: A long time ago, it was mentioned that one of Obsidians goals was to create less but more detailed NPC's. Now that the project is further down the track, is this still the general goal, and how is it panning out?
[OE]FerretB That sounded good on paper. It really did. But we also want to make it feel like a world. What we wound up with is a series of important recurring NPCs intermingled with many other people.
[OE]FerretB The upshot is that you'll get to know some people really well, and you'll see them at many points during the game. But there is a host of bit characters, too.
BigBottom: I realise music is about the last thing to be completed on a game, but who would be your ideal person for the job?
[OE]DarrenM Tramell says either PDiddy or Dr. Dre
Here's my only question that passed through in the "official" part:
metallix|rpgplanet-ru: How will be monsters and encounters placed throughout the game map, in scaling difficulty, or randomly, as in Gothic?
[OE]FerretB We make a lot of use of the encounter system to tailor an encounter based off of the party itself. But we also have a lot of specifically placed critters and beasties for a fight with some more TLC involved.
[OE]FerretB So a combination, really - but it won't be crazy random.
// I misphrased it a bit, i meant placement of monsters without gradual difficulty progression, without leading player by the hand. That, of course, was one of my least important questions, but oh well.
Kirottu: Will the frequence of actions affect chaos/order axis? I mean, if you do something really good and right after it do something really evil, do you get chaos points?
[OE]FerretB The alignment system won't keep track of stuff like that. But we have a lot of alignment checks. A surprising amount of real good law/chaos choices through the game, too.
SteveThaiBinh: In a recent survey of British schoolteachers, a majority said that commercial computer games had educational benefits for children and could even be used in classrooms. What will the player of NWN2 learn, and have you thought about preparing notes to help parents or teachers exploit the game's educational value?
[OE]CharlesM If they like it enough and open the toolset, they may learn to be game developers!
[OE]FerretB Personally, I found RPGs seriously educational in my life - no joke.
[OE]FerretB Especially when I was a kid, taught me stuff about literature, medieval times (although watered down), and more. RPGs also can make you have to crack open the dictionary when you're a kid.
xXNightElfXx: What can you customize on your character? I.e. Blue eyes, green hair, black skin, strong, ect?
[OE]DarrenM With our new "Tinting Technology(tm)(R)", you can do some really cool stuff. For example, our hair color supports two tints, so you can make it brown with gray highlights. You can customize the skin color, scale of the character's body, hair, facial hair and more
[OE]DarrenM Frank sez we support per-pixel level tinting. That sounds really cool, but not really sure what that means
[OE]DarrenM We also have a mohawk as a hair choice. I know I know, maybe played out, but hey. It looks cool. Also we have ethnic features for heads as well.
Wulf I am an "Older" player and I don't often grasp the full potential of the games I play. Will NWN2 be a good game for those of us who are not looking to rule the world but want to still have fun running around looking for things and killing small animals in the forest?
[OE]FerretB There's plenty of story in NWN2, but we try to be cognizant that some folks want to get to the killing. So on the design side of the fence we try and make sure you can "cut to the chase" and get to the action. But hopefully the cinematic cutscenes and writing will rope you in. Hee hee.
That's the end of official part (there were more questions, of course, but most of them were concerning fancy gfx and toolset, you'll read it in the official transcript)
Now the afterparty:
Llyranor what happened to MCA
((((([OE]AdamB MCA is working
// mystary revealed!
metallix|rpgplanet-ru Will dialogs feature descriptive sentences, as in Planescape: Torment? If not, then will the graphic engine allow for more complex facial expressions (both for PC and NPCs)?
[OE]DarrenM metallix: Yup
[OE]DarrenM metallix: We'll let you set emotions on a per node basis
metallix|rpgplanet-ru DO YOU HAVE SOIL EROSION!!?!?!?!
[OE]DarrenM Soil erosion? Of course! Isn't that standard in RPG's since like 1997?
Benjamin Will it be available in diskette?
[OE]DarrenM It ships on 4,106,122 floppies.
metallix|rpgplanet-ru teh hard one: Are you arranging things with Russian companies to localize it in Russia and CIS?
[OE]DarrenM metallix: Hmmm don't know. Good Atari question
Shadowstrider Darren, did you ever successfully quit smoking? (This is *so* NWN2 related)
[OE]DarrenM Shadow: Yes, I did! After leaving Black Isle, I haven't touched the stuff.
///yaa, I knew that BIS was teh root of evil
metallix|rpgplanet-ru are the story/dialog finialized?
[OE]DarrenM meallix: Yep
metallix|rpgplanet-ru Will you try to incorporate grappling, charge, bullrush, and other special attacks/maneuvers?
[OE]DarrenM metallix: Sorry Met, dunno that one
metallix|rpgplanet-ru Do you feel yourselves constrained somewhat by the publishers and other (economical) factors?
[OE]DarrenM metallix: Sometimes to be honest, but it's all about how you build your relationships throughout the project
metallix|rpgplanet-ru ARe you involved in any indie-projects, or do you plan to?
[OE]DarrenM metallix: I so wanted to be on an Ultima Online Free Server project, but yeah... no time.
metallix|rpgplanet-ru now a very trick one: Do you enjoy doing Bioware-started projects, or are you more interested in doing your original game?
[OE]DarrenM metallix: It's funny I don't really think of it that way so much - It's really exciting to work on NWN2, even if BioWare hadn't made the first. We're currently working on a new IP game right now too
metallix|rpgplanet-ru IS NWN2 More nVidia-biased, or ATI?
[OE]DarrenM metallix: Neither
Artevere neither, Metallix
metallix|rpgplanet-ru okay
[OE]DarrenM metallix: It's all DX shader language
[OE]AdamB metallix: neither
metallix|rpgplanet-ru good to hear that
[OE]DarrenM We run great on both cards
Llyranor neither, metallix
// that was damn funny, with all those echoing responses... well, considering that I echo my own question for n times every time (in order to be actually heard in this flood-fest), it's acceptable i guess ^_^
metallix|rpgplanet-ru DOES NWN2 HAVE PATRICK STEWARTT??!?!
[OE]DarrenM NO!
righ darn
metallix|rpgplanet-ru IF YOU EVER COME TO KAZAKHSTAN, DRINKS ARE ON ME OKAYYY
[OE]DarrenM metallix: Sweet
Syrsuro So how WILL inventory work?
[OE]DarrenM Did you play Icewind Dale 2?
metallix|rpgplanet-ru meh
[OE]DarrenM
And then i had to go, and I guess devs followed not long after. If anyone has some more quotes, cough 'em up.
I could, of course, post the entire log, but damn that would choke this thread up (btw, how about "hide"-"click to view" feature?).
EDIT: Here's the post-log from Warcry.com
