NWN XP Lameness

[Sol Invictus]

Darcy Pajak, Asst Producer for NWN expansion pack wrote:
Whoa!!, down there Nizidramanii't, I?m not making any promises. Robes and Cloaks are not easy to implement them as people think. Although I have seen some user created mods with cloaks and robes, and for the most part they are good, I really dislike the clipping and the way they look during some fighting animations. For us to do it right, will take a person here a long time. We need to balance that time and cost against other things we want to put in. Tile sets, spells, monsters, weapons, feats, etc, etc. All we and FloodGate can do is look into the cost, and make the decision based on what will give us the biggest bang for the buck.

To put in another way:
Cloaks and Robes = $50
New spells = $2/ each
New monster = $5/ each
Tile sets = $35/ each
Wizards for toolset = $10
Prestige class = $5/ each
New weapons = $2 each
(do not take this as real cost ratios, I?m only using it to make a point)

We have $100 to make the expansion, how do we choose what gets in?
We look at what the community is using most of all, and what they want to have included. (Sometimes they tell us directly, sometimes it?s indirectly) We make our choices from there.
Because of the cost of robes and cloaks that feature would not even make it past the initial discussion phase, however because many people in the community want it, we put it for analysis.
Also consider this;
Cloaks and Robes only add a cosmetic improvement to the game, while the other features add more adventure options. This doesn?t make cloaks and robes any less valuable to the users, but as anything cosmetic it would be great at first, but then people would get bored and look for the new flavor of the month.

I hope that make some sense of how we go about deciding what gets in and what does not.

BTW:
Horses = $101
Swimming = $101
Climbing = $101
Sorry

What do you guys think? Is this lame or what? It's 'hard work' so they're basically too freaking lazy to do it.

 

[Sol Invictus]

It's just plain pathetic on Bioware's behalf because even as community/end users manage to make climbing and swimming mods that work perfectly, the dotards at Bioware think it 'takes too much work' to implement. What the hell are they getting paid for?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

It's just plain pathetic on Bioware's behalf because even as community/end users manage to make climbing and swimming mods that work perfectly, the dotards at Bioware think it 'takes too much work' to implement. What the hell are they getting paid for?

The community has done cloaks and horses too, IIRC. What gets me is they had 75 people working on NWN at one point, and none of these people could do those things?

They have a skeletal modelling system in NWN, so why can't they make climbing and swimming? It's not much more than adding the key frame vectors. If they don't want to motion capture them, that's fine by me. They can fake it.

I think what this really boils down to is they know they can get away with being half assed. Whether or not the game/expansion sucks, it'll sell.

 

[Spazmo]

They want to put this stuff in the 18th expansion, Return of Drizzt Do'Urden.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Cloaks and Robes = $50
New spells = $2/ each
New monster = $5/ each
Tile sets = $35/ each
Wizards for toolset = $10
Prestige class = $5/ each
New weapons = $2 each
Horses = $101
Swimming = $101
Climbing = $101

Decent RPG? Priceless.

There are some things money can't buy, but for everything else, there's a dumb designer out there willing to give it to you coz sti k3wl d00d!!11!

So by what he's saying with those costs, shitloads of worthless new weapons, spells and monsters is what they're making. Yippee!! Sounds like a Sims expansion pack.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

The thing I find the most odd about those things missing is... The game is 3D!

3D with skeletal animation has a huge advantage over 2D in this type of thing. You can see the depth of water, and have it mimic water effects, for example. You can have the character move to any stance and position you can program in to the game as well. So why not include swimming in NWN?

Likewise, you have 3D walls and vertical surfaces. As long as the animations are in the game, it shouldn't be hard to make the player climb up a wall and have the camera move with him.

Now, I don't agree with Exitium that the reason for this is that BioWare is lazy. After some thought about it, I think the reason they did this is because they're uncreative.

Think about it. What do water and walls do in NWN? They force you to stay on a path set by the designer. Think about their sewer maps in NWN in Act 1. If those maps allowed swimming, you'd figure out that those maps are basically hacks where you're forced to take a ride on the ferry rather than make the course yourself by another means.

Consider all the seemingly superfilous barriers in the fort area in Act 3. If there was climbing, you could just avoid the path the designers mandate that you must travel on.

Another problem is that BioWare can't design anything that's possible for just one character, really. They fill every area with monsters and traps, and locked things, forcing the player to either have a thief or a bard, or be a thief or bard.

NPCs may or may not have swimming or climbing, and thus the pathfinding would have to be much, much better than it is. NPCs are forced on the player due to the poor design of NWN being that of a party game rather than a game with multiple tiers available to the player based on their class.

In other words, they can't have those skills in their game because they're not creative enough to deal with the consequences of having them, nor do they have the design ability to make something work for the different classes independently, like Fallout, Arcanum, or even the shareware games like Geneforge did.

 

[Ibbz]

I havent seen ANY module/mod that allows swimming/climbing. Fanboys who say they exist - are lying. {Although people may be attempting to make them}

Darcy Pajak - Assistant Producer -
Robes & Cloaks:
Hello everyone,
There has been a lot of interest about having Robes, and Cloaks in the upcoming expansion packs. Our approach with NWN has always been to implement features completely and in a quality manner. If we judge either element lacking in a feature we do not attempt that feature. We had a meeting yesterday with FloodGate to discuss the viability of cloaks and robes. We discussed the quality we wanted to set for cloaks and robes and re-examined the resources and cost associated with implementing this feature, we weighed all the options and found we did not have the resources needed to implement robes and cloaks to the quality we require for Shadows of Undrentide, or the second expansion pack. We are confidant that the current set feature set will please NWN fans and enhance the original game in many ways.

Another answer to as why they didnt go with cloaks.

In other words, they can't have those skills in their game because they're not creative enough to deal with the consequences of having them, nor do they have the design ability to make something work for the different classes independently, like Fallout, Arcanum, or even the shareware games like Geneforge did.

Perhaps they are focusing too much on the multiplayer? by having traps and such it encourages the people to team up - and doesnt make rogues feel useless. {Although Bards are and forever will be, useless.}

Jonric: We know the first module, The Fields of Battle, is intended for starting level characters. To what extent will players be able to follow different character development paths in terms of good vs evil, and other play style differences such as killing everything vs diplomatic?
Rob Bartel:There's a wide range of different play styles. For one, the differences between good and evil aren't particularly clear in this world, and you'll find yourself dealing with a lot of shades of gray. That said, there are some actions that will be very clearly of an evil nature and paladins can fall if they choose to follow those paths (other classes are more than welcome to pursue them, however). Also, you'll find a lot of opportunities in conversation to use your various class abilities to bluff, intimidate, provoke, pacify, and obtain favors from the various characters.
One other thing to note is that I've completely revised the way XP is distributed. No XP is awarded strictly for killing creatures. Instead, it's rewarded for discovering new areas, obtaining new information, and so forth. The beta testers have really appreciated this new system because it allows them to role-play their characters. Rogues can sneak past enemies without feeling like they're losing out on XP, wizards can outwit them, and fighters can still plough through them with a bloodied blade. All of them get rewarded for doing what's really important - resolving the quest at hand rather than the wholesale slaughtering of entire kobold villages.

Never know, Bioware might suprise you with the Witch's Wake.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I havent seen ANY module/mod that allows swimming/climbing. Fanboys who say they exist - are lying. {Although people may be attempting to make them}

That wouldn't shock me.

Another answer to as why they didnt go with cloaks.

That's a pretty pathetic answer, Ibbz. "We didn't think we could do SUPER KEWL CLOAKS, so NO CLOAKS!" Hell, if that was their rationale, i.e. not releasing something that's subpar, they wouldn't have shipped the Aribeth campaign.

However, some of those cloak mods are pretty darn nice, and it's not that hard to make cloaks. It's just a double sided mesh that needs to be told how the player is moving so it can move with the player. You could get away with nine bones and make a damned nice cloak.

Perhaps they are focusing too much on the multiplayer? by having traps and such it encourages the people to team up - and doesnt make rogues feel useless. {Although Bards are and forever will be, useless.}

Or.. Perhaps they suck at making single character games?

Even in multiplayer, if there were multiply avenues for the completion of areas, they'd still have to team up, because the fighters won't be able to make it the thiefy ways, which should have thiefy elements. However, that fighter will still need those metal doors unlocked occationally, and the fighters can distract a monster while the thief sneak attacks.

Never know, Bioware might suprise you with the Witch's Wake.

We'll see, that is if I bother to reinstall NWN.