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Sticky: Overlooked Module Report - August 2006[ Comment ] Print News | Mail News The community has produced so many modules that sometimes some really great ones don't get the recognition they deserve especially if the author is a great builder but maybe doesn't heavily promote their work. In order to help bring a spotlight on these modules, a group of board community members have put together a list of Overlooked Modules for you to check out. Here's the report for August from the community post they made:
The Overlooked Module Report - August 2006
Over in the Bioware Forums, a group of us have collectively started a list of modules that we feel have been overlooked relative to some of the more popular titles. Defining what is and is not an "overlooked" module is admittedly a subjective exercise, but we felt there were enough great suggestions in our thread to warrant compiling this list and sharing it with the visitors of the Vault.
Because our list is quite long, we're releasing this list in monthly installments. We'd be delighted to receive additional recommendations for future releases of our list, so feel free to drop by the thread with your ideas.
Without further ado, here is the monthly report of selected overlooked modules:
* Adventures in Erandia. A very visual mod that puts everything in the CEP to good use. The story is decent, and some scripted situations make for some interesting travel around beautiful areas. There is no hak other than CEP. A short adventure to play in a single night (rec'd by furnaski). Currently 1478 downloads and 22 votes.
* BRI - The Fall of the Ullad. Its a bit linear, but the story is really engaging and the fights are challenging and fun with enough variation to keep it interesting. There are also some nice storytelling techniques here too. The author doesn't do anything fancy with the toolset, but the story and encounters more than make up for this. Highly recommended (rec'd by todde). Currently 1144 downloads and 8 votes.
* Doom of Stormouth. Although all of the areas in this mod are small, it has an interesting story. One interesting feature is that the author uses a strange script to respawn NPC/monster in the main town. It is quite a wonder when you see NPC's that keep dropping from the sky to the ground (rec'd by Starlight). Currently 1452 downloads and 16 votes.
* Glorious Rejuvenation. Solve the mystery behind a series of terrible mutilations in a small town. Good roleplaying with several alternative outcomes to the main story that depend on your decisions (rec'd by caesarbear and Berliad). Currently 1942 downloads and 33 votes.
* Heroes of Illdara. A cult once thought to have been destroyed has risen again and you need to find it and then persuade a group of heroes to work together to help defeat it. There are numerous side-quests and sub plots (over 40). There are a large number of henchmen around (fighters and rogues), BUT you will have to look around to find them. A highlight involves a quest in which you help a bard write a poem/song (you type in the lyrics). 40+ hours long--you'll finish at ~ 13th lvl. (rec'd by ericdoman). Currently only 825 downloads and 2 votes.
We encourage everyone to check these modules out! And thanks to the authors of these modules for their contributions. If you are aware of modules that are overlooked, please drop by our thread and give us your recommendations. You can find our entire list of overlooked modules here.
Thanks for the work and we look forward to future module spotlights.
"Merlin of Camelot and King Arthur fame, fresh from his fight with Morgana, finds that Earth is quickly becoming a realm devoid of magic, and use for him.
He journeys to another realm altogether, where magic is so powerful and vital that nearly every member of the world has spell casting ability of some sort.
Once there, he encounters a band of fantastic youths, and together, they set forth on a journey that will either forge or destroy an entire world...
This story is based on the history for a long running table top D&D; game I ran. This story told the PCs how they came to be where they were and the whys and whatnot for what was going on. I hope you enjoy it"
If you have an idea to share with the community or would like to inspire a module maker to create something you're dreaming about, then enter it and we'll post it here. Thanks to the people who have done so already.
"A last batch of beta/promo shots for my module, "Sethal's Progeny: Wisdom of Wyrms". Had them from one of my last run-throughs and thought these were worthy of sharing. :)
I'm done releasing promo stuff for the module, at least until it has been publically available for a while, as I'm tired of assembling them (and I'm sure some of you folks probably are, too. :P)
I won't comment on whether that means I've got less than a week, or a week and a half left to go to open beta. Nope, definitely won't even mention that. ;)
-DS"
Thanks for the submission DirgeSinger. You can add your own screenshots and we'll publish one a day so the authors get good coverage.
Missing Votes for Hall of Fame[ Comment ] Print News | Mail News Here are some of the entries that are short of the 25 votes needed to be considered for the Hall of Fame. If you've downloaded any of these files, please visit their pages and rate them. Getting feedback from the community is very important to content authors and ensures that they continue to produce more for you to download.
Interview: Darkness over Daggerford World Map System - Alan Miranda/Brian Watson[ Comment ] Print News | Mail News We have an interview with Ossian Studios' Lead Designer, Alan Miranda, and Hall of Famer, Brian Watson (aka MadWombat), as they talk talk to us about the world map system in their widely popular cancelled premium module, Darkness over Daggerford which is now available free to the community. Topics of the interview include what it is, why it was included, how it works, comparisions to the Baldur's Gate version, how long it took, opportunities for other authors to use it and more. Also they've given us a video where you can see it in action. Here's an excerpt:
1) One very cool feature of "Darkness over Daggerford" is the new world map and random encounter system. Could you tell us more about it?
Alan Miranda: The world map is one of the main features of Darkness over Daggerford, planned for at the very start of the project. I'll get into why exactly in the next question. One of our designers, Brian Watson (aka MadWombat) was responsible for implementing practically all of the world map system, and did a fantastic job! I'll let him introduce it.
Brian Watson: The world map in Darkness over Daggerford should be familiar to fans of the Baldur's Gate series. A world map system is a great way to familiarize the player with the region that the adventure takes place in, and in Darkness over Daggerford, it also serves to help the player explore and discover new areas. Of course, the Neverwinter Nights Toolset doesn't have built-in map functions, so the map system was specifically created for this module, and is one of the things that should make Darkness over Daggerford a fresh and fun experience for NWN players.
Thanks to Alan and Brian for taking the time to answer our questions.
"When I got Rob Bartel's permission to help translating the module and indulge my little, petty poem; I felt very honoured. Here I describe a failing witch-hunter of Barak Thule for the reader is assumed to be the successor who makes it."
Um ... isn't a short sword a small/light weapon? I thought gnomes and halflings could already wield them with one hand, or am I missing something?
J
In general, if a character can wield a weapon two-handed, we assume that they want to wield it two-handed if nothing is in their off-hand. So, if you put a longsword in your human's hand (with nothing in the off-hand), it will say "Equipped as a two-handed weapon." and will use the two-handed slashing animations (and bonuses). Most characters won't wield short swords or rapiers with two hands because they can't. Because gnomes and halflings can, they automatically will unless something goes in their off-hand.
engine stacking caps? Actually, what we've been experimenting with (on ability scores ONLY -- repeat, no difference from NWN1 except for what I'm about to say for ability scores) is that nothing stacks. No bull's strength + gauntlets + ring + rage + frenzy -- you'll always just take the highest bonus. It might sound draconian, but it seems to help reign in the high-end balance a lot for a wide variety of melee characters (PrC or not).
More:
It clearly states in the 3.5 ed Complete warrior book (the source for the frenzied berserker prc) that frenzy and rage are supposed to stack. In fact, that is one of the main reasons for going fb in the 1st place: the class is supposed to be balanced by the after effects of fury and/or rage (winded or exhausted) as well as the uses per day.
Yes, that's the theory, but it isn't balanced by that at all. Certainly not in a game like NWN2. Our FBs could very easily gain 50 STR at the higher levels. Combined with their power attack bonuses, they would annihilate almost everything in their path so quickly that their fatigue effects were irrelevant.
EDIT: And when I write, "they would" I mean that "they did" until we made the power attack and stacking changes. Now FBs are still very strong, but not absurdly so.
More:
Sounds like a good reason not to allow the frenzy to stack. But what about non-frenzied barbarians? Doesn't this remove much of the point of their rage (unless - insert fervent hope - magic is sufficiently rare that rage remains useful).
To be honest, it does lessen the value of barbarian rage, but I do still believe it is useful. It's secondary effects aside, the Str and Con bonuses are nice because they free up equipment slots for the barbarian and spell slots for other characters. It's also time that those other characters don't have to spend buffing the barbarian. Certainly no one has complained that the barbarian has become weak since our changes were made.
Question to the devs about companion/summon/familiar etc. XP penalties You suffer no XP penalties for the presence/use of summons, familiars, or animal companions. They are considered just as much a part of your class' standard abilities as a fighter's feats or a rogue's sneak attack.
Shane K. DeFreest - NWN2 Community Manager, Maverick Public Relations -
New NWN2 Forum Moderator As many of you can tell the traffic on the forums has grown, and will continue to grow considerably as we get closer to launch. Given the increased forum traffic, it's come time to get Vulcano and Selene some help. In my search for the next moderator I've found someone that has been fair, levelheaded and in his own words spends "an unhealthy amount of hours on the boards". So with that in mind I'd like to welcome Orik to the NWN2 moderator team!
Fan Site Manager Beta! Thanks to everyone who sent their information in. The final count was 114 sites, consisting of nine different languages, were submitted to Atari today. I'll be honest in that I stretched the availability list as far as it could go. While at the same time did have to turn some submissions down. If your site just consisted of a link directly into mostly empty forums, or a hastily uploaded "coming soon" that's where I had to draw the line for entrance into the beta. Otherwise please be patient and Atari's beta test team will be contacting you soon.
Again, this was our way of thanking all the sites who have been continuously supportive of the Neverwinter franchise both in the past, and moving on into the future. We're very excited to see what the most talented, and diverse gaming community in the world will create using the power of the NWN2 Toolset.
Thank you for your continued support and enjoy!
More: Your site was fine, but there were also a few sites submitted that were a so bare bones I had to flag as questionable. Ultimately, I was way over the cap allotted to me, and I got as many individuals in from as many different sites as possible.
Official Forum Highlights[ Comment ] Print News | Mail News Here are the latest posts from the Official Forums made by the developers. Please note these are only one part of the thread, and should not be taken out of context. If you find any forum threads we may have missed or you think should be in the highlights, send me an email.
Chris Priestly - Quality Assurance -
16 Aug 2006 - Darkness over Daggerford Just pointing out that there is a thread open with a bunch of helpful tips over in the NwN boards. I know Cabel Blacke is stopping in when they can, but you might also get help over in the Darkness over Daggerford thread. You can find it here: Click Here
Missing Votes for Hall of Fame[ Comment ] Print News | Mail News Here are some of the entries that are short of the 25 votes needed to be considered for the Hall of Fame. If you've downloaded any of these files, please visit their pages and rate them. Getting feedback from the community is very important to content authors and ensures that they continue to produce more for you to download.
Quick Pros :Fantastic scripting, and engrossing plot. The most 'alive' NWN city I have ever seen. Quick Cons :This is not really so much a con, merely an observasion. No repsawn (Keep a very up to date save at all times) Some very expensive equipment in some stores, that apart from the properties on them, do not strike me as items a Wizard or Sorcerer would use.
Almraiven captures the player from the very start and never relinquishes its hold. If you love to solve mysteries this is the module for you, if you enjoy your senses being blasted into the next galaxy, this is the module for you! Almraiven is a spectacular example of the sweetest scripting and one of the best storylines I have ever had the pleasure of playing.
Thanks QSW as well to Stravinsky our Review Assistant Admin. If you would like to add your module for review, go here.
Darkness over Daggerford Breaking Records![ Comment ] Print News | Mail News Thanks to Steve Savicki for pointing out that the recently released Darkness over Daggerford module by Ossian Studios has met all Hall of Fame requirements in less than 3 days, with a perfect score of 10, nearly 5000 downloads when only 2500 are needed, as well as 36 votes when only 25 are needed. Even at the peak of the NWN I don't think we've had a module get this much of a response. Congrats to Ossian, all the Hall of Fame authors who worked on it, as well as DLA for their very cool TNO tileset that is featured in the module.
Featured Artwork Print News | Mail News We have a new piece of artwork to share with you today titled Jahlharra by James Bracknell. Here is the description:"I submitted an older version of this long ago, and since I cant remember my old user ID and password, Im submitting this cleaned-up version under a new user ID. Its a pencil drawing that I scanned and colored on Photoshop." Thanks for the submission James Bracknell. You can add your own artwork and we'll publish one a day so the artist get good coverage.
Your first character combination My first was a female gold dwarf paladin. She did really well. My new character is a lawful evil male lightfoot halfling rogue/ranger heading toward assassin. He's having more trouble, especially with undead.
When I create my character, I will probably flip a coin; heads for Selune, tails for Shar.
Probably more appropriate for Tymora/Beshaba.
Dev Q: Duelist's Precise Strike and Flourish It works this way with one exception: small duelists who are forced to wield short swords and rapiers with two-hands will still gain these benefits.
Sure. Why not? D&D combat tries to simulate real combat as closely as possible.
what
Patrick K Mills - NWN2 Production Tester, Obsidian Entertainment -
Issues About Resting If the game is balanced to accommodate for resting anywhere, is it still a balance problem?
NWN2 video interview at GameTrailers I don't know about the 200 new spells thing. We do have a lot of new ones, but I think that is a little much. To be fair, if you include all of the warlock essence/shape combinations that is a ton of new spells right there.
I enjoyed the part of the video where it cuts to some guys (presumably at Atari) playing and enjoying a game that, unless they have a special build that allows them to play our game on a PS2 controler, is not NWN2.
Question about summoning spells... All our summon spells, with the exception of creeping doom, tenacious plague, and elemental swarm, only summon one creature per cast, and only one summon can be out at a time.
It is pretty simple to rescript a spell so as to summon more than one creature at a time and probably easy to remove the check that prevents you from summoning more than one at a time- I'm not sure on the last one though.
More: I'm not sure where that information comes from, but it's possible I'm incorrect.
There are sections in our game where you can have henchmen in addition to your regular companions, the difference being that you cannot directly control henchmen, but I'm not aware of any hard summoning cap of seven.
OK, let's assume a party of all wizards or druids. Each get their pet or familiar, which doubles the size of the party to eight. Four PCs and four henchmen. Then each druid/wizard can summon another creature with a summon monster spell. That's another four. Total of eight, not seven.
More:
familiars dont count surely? they are just nice pets now
Right, what I'm saying is that there is no hard cap that I'm aware of, period. There is a soft cap in that the summoning spells I'm familiar with always run a check to see if you have a summoned creature (not a pet) and then delete it before summoning in the new one.
These spells are more or less unchanged from NWN, unless it was done before I started working on spells. The only difference now is what is summoned at what level, etc, since we have a different bestiary than NWN.
It would be a lot of fun to change the summons so you could spam the hell out of the place (and pretty easy) but this late in the project it's too dangerous to do, plus I have a ton of bugs that need fixing.
George Ziets - NWN2 Designer, Obsidian Entertainment -
I believe you will only be able to summon one familiar or animal companion at a time.
Jason Keeney - Programmer, Obsidian Entertainment -
Cheating with walkmeshes - the Bake command I think you guys will find that the toolset provides enough tools and "official" methods for walkmesh manipulation that you wont need to resort to such hacks to do what you want.
Official Forum Highlights[ Comment ] Print News | Mail News Here are the latest posts from the Official Forums made by the developers. Please note these are only one part of the thread, and should not be taken out of context. If you find any forum threads we may have missed or you think should be in the highlights, send me an email.
Georg Zoeller - Designer -
Darkness over Daggerford The module would have had higher minspecs than HotU if it had been released through the premium module program.
Probably more along the lines of ID.
Stanley Woo - Quality Assurance -
Bioware Appreciation Darkness Over Daggerford was released by its developers, Ossian Studios, and not by BioWare. It was a Premium NWN module that was, unfortunately, cancelled along with the others in development.
Were they not Bioware employees though? I thought for sure they were and would release it as a premium module as any other, although Atari cut the premium module project altogether.
The members of Ossian Studios are not BioWare|Pandemic employees. They are headed by former BioWare producer Alan Miranda.
I have an AMD Athlon 64 3000 (2000Mhz) with 1GB ram and an Nvidial 7800GS (AGP) video card with 256 MB of memory.. I play with Shadows (creature and enviroment) and Grass off, Dynamic lighting halfway, everything else maxed. I should not be quick to blame the tileset, as it might well be other placeables and scripts and what not in the module, but when I'm the outside of Daggerford, my FPS often dips below 21, which starts making the animation look choppy on my LCD.... And this module also crashed on me 5 times last night, again, only when in the town of Daggerford (outside).. NWN almost *never* crashes for me otherwise.
Try disabling sound, or check if your sound settings are set to software or hardware. I've had similar problems when I had sound set to software, causing lots of lag especially with the many sound objects placed in an area (the CPU lag occurs from the software sound mixing).
Missing Votes for Hall of Fame[ Comment ] Print News | Mail News Here are some of the entries that are short of the 25 votes needed to be considered for the Hall of Fame. If you've downloaded any of these files, please visit their pages and rate them. Getting feedback from the community is very important to content authors and ensures that they continue to produce more for you to download.
So with that in mind I'd like to welcome Orik to the NWN2 moderator team!
