q05. What Engine will NWN2 use?

a. FrankK: Everything relating to the graphics, collision detection, and just about every 'low-level' aspect of Aurora is being redone in 'Electron' (working title) at the moment. This makes it almost impossible to convert old modules to new ones as the way object are placed, rendered, and move around the world is 100% new.

We did talk to several mod makers, as well as polling our own designers and decided that MOST of the mod effort seems focuses on scripting and dialog--so we get the most bang for the buck trying to maintain compatibility of those two aspects of the engine. We will be striving for this.

However, there's no real way to convert tile_005 to whatever we decide we want and assure the outcome is what anyone desires--so we probably won't import area layouts or creature placement, etc.

Rhomal's Take: Expect tile based though with some high polys and nice textures. Plus some advanced functions like deformable terrain and DX9 eye candy.
Update: Did I call that or what?  I am glad they decided to stick with tile based. Unlike what some may say you can have tile based and still have it good looking game with advanced terrain features.
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q07. Will NWN2 include all elements of the orginial? (DM, server, Toolset)

a. Urquhart: Plus, we plan to give the module-building community support for everything new we add to the game and hopefully refine the module-building process for them, so they can make even better things.

Rhomal's Take: Yuppers.. expect Player client, DM client, Server and Toolset.

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q11. Will there be a level cap, what is it?

a. Urquhart: As for a level cap, there will be one for the single-player game, but that is mostly so that we can spend as much time as possible on all the spells and special character abilities for every class up to level 20 and make them the best they can be.

Rhomal's Take: Not surprising, they have to trim some things out for NWN2 XP1

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q16. Will NWN have z axis for climbing, flying/levatating, jumping, etc?

a. Jason Keeney: A "z-axis" is not some kind of discreet, tangable thing that is the means to any kind of gameplay end. There is no "z-axis" plugin that we can add to the engine that suddenly makes possible flying, jumping, deformable terrain, spkie pits, swimming, climbing, multi-level walk-meshes, falling, hovering, etc, etc, etc...

All of these kinds of gameplay elements are separate and independant from one another. They will or wont be included in the game for a variety of reasons, possibly technical, but even more likely for their impact on the gamepley.

Its entirely possible that we'll inlclude flying and climbing, but not jumping and swimming... or there will be multi-level walkmesheshes, but no hovering, etc, etc, etc....

For each gameplay mechanic the term "z-axis" has a very different meaning and consequence. Simply calling out for it in general is, at best, hopelessly vague.

If you want to see flying.. ask for flying. If you want climbing, ask for climbing. Its going to be a waaaaay more productive discussion.

Rhomal's Take: I say chances of some kind of z axis, full or partial, is fairly good.

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q19. Will horses/mountable horses be included?

a. Urquhart: We want to have things like flowing cloaks, armor that appears frosted in cold environments, mounts for players to ride, and as much character customization as possible.

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q20. Will cloaks and robes be in NWN2?

a. Urquhart: We want to have things like flowing cloaks, armor that appears frosted in cold environments, mounts for players to ride, and as much character customization as possible.

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q25. Will NWN2 have built in subrace support?

a. FrankK: Sub Races are on the discussion board (we're still in pre-production design and art-wise) for implementation feasibility. So the magic 8-ball says: maybe.


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q27. Will Prestige Classes be added in NWN2?

a. Urquhart: I just watched the interview again - I did a lot of interviews in the course of about 24 hours. I think Ryan was assuming that by going back to 1st level that we wouldn't offer Prestige Classes. Then when I answered the question I didn't address that part of it. So, to answer it better here - Prestige Classes are currently on the list of things that we are going to do.

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q28. Will the interface be changed?

a. FrankK: We've looked to mmorgs for some interface suggestions (like quick targeting, locking on targets, etc) to make the game simpler as well as things like /assist commands.

Point and click will remain. Quickbars will remain. I'm not sure where the inference came that we are 'consolizing' the game, but that is simply not the case and I fail to see how adding more hotkeys or options to access feats quickly is 'consolizing' the game. RPGs aren't about navigating interfaces.

We've looked into possibly tying 'quick commands' to certain options (like double-click to execute some default feat, or tapping w-w to 'leap attack' etc). Certainly your success in NWN2 will not depend on anything other than the character in the game (and not the dexterity of the player playing the game). We're simply looking at some things to reduce the NEED to pause in order to manuever the interface. It's possible some people misinterpret this to mean you MUST use these new features--you won't have to.

FrankK: Rewriting the GUI is something we need to do to support some other features in the game. As for being able to reskin the GUI, that magic 8 ball isn't saying no yet...but we'll see.

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q30. Will helm's be replacing heads or open faced?

a. marc_taro: NWN2 will not have such ancient limitations – it’s about 100 dog years later in graphics tech since we built the first engine…so look forward to open faced helms, caged grills, visors, circlets, anything we can imagine…

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q35. What style of armor/clothing will NWN2 have?

a. marco: I'll go so far as to say there will be *both realistic and fantastic choices* in the armor sets.

It's a game fellas(and fellinas (is that a word?) - so there will be some fun, and some realism. I rarely design something I think is overly sexualized - I mean yuan-ti leather bondage stuff aside... but total realism is a bit dull isn’t it?

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q36. Will PC's have long/flowing hair as a option?

a. marco: Believe me, you don’t know how much I would love to have long hair. We're going to try again - like we try every game - but you have to understand it’s a very difficult problem. Very hard to animate the hair to work with all the extreme motion a D&D character goes thru – and to work with all the helmets, shoulder armor, cloaks etc....

Physics sim is a potential solution, but not real-time – you want to save juice for the rest of gameplay – and it’s also a matter of limiting number of bones…a dozen pc’s with flowing locks might add up to one less creature in the melee.

We’ll try, but of course, (‘cuz I’m a sucker for those blowing strands of anime hair), but I can’t promise anything till we have a tech solution….

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q40. Will NWN2 have real day/night cycles?

a. FrankK: Day/Night directional lighting (from the sun/moon) will be implemented.

FrankK: One of our goals is to in fact have the dominant directional light in the outdoor scenes cast from the same location as the dominant 'moving' orb of light (sun/moon). We've already toyed with moving the light source to test some lighting, so it's pretty much a matter of hooking up a texture in the skybox to the same location.

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q42. Will NWN2 use Sims2 type facial editing for character creation?

a. FrankK: We thought about this technology. There are some big questions about how it would gracefully handle certain technical features, so it's just one of many possible solutions, but it's nothing we are currently pursuing as a real-time solution.

FrankK: it is our desire to make the character's face and hair more customizable. We have a pretty neat system in place we are looking at, but as you are probably used to hearing me say, nothing is final.

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q43. Will the battle animations be edited/replaced?

FrankK: It's not an 'A' priority, but the Dance O' Death is set to be cut and replaced with something nicer.

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q44. Will the fog of war/distance fog be removed/changed?

a. FrankK: distance fog should remain relatively the same.

we'll be looking at volumetric fog at some point, but no decisions have been made (aka the swirly ground stuff).

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q45. Will NWN2 have a world map?

Ferret: It's early in development, but we have plans to do a world map of some flavor. I can't promise it, but it's on our list.

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q52. Will emotes be expanded/changed?

a. Ferret: Emotes may be handled via chat commands (so Rynjaxx may get his wish). As with everything this early in the game, it's hard to tell how far down the feature request list we'll be able to get before we ship.

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