The last in a ten part series of articles outlining the lore of Westgate has been posted at the official forums. This time the focus of the article is on the Church of Lathander.

A Call to Arms - The Response of the Church of Lathander

Lathander is the most blessed god of the dawn. And I, Obid Teltas, govern this temple in his name. Together, Lathander and I shall smite the evil festering in the bowels of Westgate! Then the people shall chant my name! Er, and that of Lathander.

- Obid Teltas, Priest of Lathander

Click through to read the specifics of the Church for the Mysteries of Westgate module.

In addition to WarCry's Hands On report, several other sites have posted theirs as well.

• Kgambit posted at Thieve's Guild
• Maximus posted at Neverwinter Vault
• Liso66 posted at podcast at NWN Podcast
• Allen Rausch posted at Gamespy
• Robert Stock posted at Just RPG

There should be a couple more coming down the pipe. We'll let you know when they're up.

As game worlds become more and more advanced, they also grow larger and larger. The by-product of this improvement is the long distances that must be traveled between locations. For some reason, with this increase in world size, there is not a corresponding improvement in traveling systems. Indeed, there seems to be almost a perverse joy in sending players on quests that involve running back and forth between two distant points with no other objective but carrying a bickering message between a pair of NPCs.

JUNE 2008

It just doesn't get any more specific than that.

Now that that's out of the way, we can move on to the meat of WarCry's recent visit to California to meet Ossian Studios developers. Ossian, in case you've been away from Neverwinter Nights 2 for awhile, is developing the first premium module, now called an 'adventure pack', for Neverwinter Nights 2. The module, entitled "Mysteries of Westgate" is a city adventure and takes place in the well-known D&D location of Westgate. Up to this point in time, most of the available media and information about MoW has come via the official forums and Ossian developers. This was a first chance to get a hands on look at Mysteries of Westgate.

The day began with a 'tour' of Mysteries of Westgate. Our small group spent 45 minutes or so being shown the highlights of Westgate and were given an opportunity to ask developers Alan Miranda and Russ Davis questions covering a wide variety of topics. After this we were turned loose on the game for 2+ hours of hands on "work".

Click below to read the rest including sections about assets, maps & movement and much more!

The latest NWN Podcast is out and available for listening pleasure. Featuring an interview with "FFBJ", the 'cast focuses on bringing worlds to life:

Hoist the anchor and hold onto the rail... There be pirates aboard the podcast! Dave, left defenseless at the helm, is unable to stop Skunkeen's mutiny... so he joins in... will the podcast ever be the same?

Bob aka FFBJ is subjected to Dave's rambling interviewing techniques which have been deemed torture by numberous human-rights organizations. Rest assured Bob weathers the storm and delivers an intimate look into making a world come alive.

Modders in particular will want to lend an ear.

In an unsurprising, and honestly overdue, move, the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ) has thrown Atari off their stock listings. Atari had been warned for the last year or so that the move was 'imminent' but had fought the delisting. The merger with Infogrames apparently came too late:

NEW YORK, May 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Atari, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATAR), an interactive entertainment company, announced today that on May 7, 2008 it received a letter from The Nasdaq Stock Market stating that a Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Panel has determined to delist Atari, Inc.'s securities from the Nasdaq Global Market and will suspend trading of Atari, Inc.'s shares effective on the opening of business on May 9, 2008. Atari, Inc. plans to request a review from the Nasdaq Listing and Hearing Review Council, which could alter or dismiss the Panel's determination. However, such a request will not delay the suspension of trading. Atari, Inc. now expects to be quoted on the Pink Sheets, an electronic quotation service maintained by Pink Sheets LLC. The Pink Sheets allow continued trading of securities of delisted companies. Atari, Inc. expects its common stock to be traded on the Pink Sheets under the symbol "ATAR" or "ATAR.PK". Atari, Inc.'s common stock may also be quoted on the OTC Bulletin Board(R), a regulated quotation service for over-the-counter securities, provided one or more market makers apply to quote Atari, Inc.'s securities.

Read the rest of the Atari press release after the jump.

Jim Moreno tackles the difficult task of roleplaying a merchant in this edition of RoleCraft: "Even roleplayers are known to struggle with this cookie cutter gameplay, and with keeping their characters from looking and acting just like every other character in game. What to do? One sure way to avoid the pitfalls of routine is to realize that there are many other classes in game besides adventurer. It's time to become a professional roleplayer!"

One of the fastest growing fan sites for Neverwinter Nights 2 is Thieves Guild. Not only is the site a fine repository of information, walk throughs, crafting recipes, etc., but they have now entered into the "modding" business with the recent merger with NWN 2 Mods.

Because of their explosive growth, the folks behind Thieves Guild were natural targets for an interview by WarCry. Without further ado, here's our interview:

If you would, start with a paragraph or two about yourselves, the site, etc.

Thieves-Guild.net is a fan site dedicated exclusively to NWN2 including the Mask of the Betrayer expansion and the soon to be released Mysteries of Westgate adventure pack. There is vast amount of information on the site ranging from character creation (including base and prestige classes, feats, clerical domains), maps and walkthroughs, crafting guides, a Crossroad Keep guide, influence guides, item codes, cheat codes, and lots more. The site also has it's own dedicated forums where people can ask questions on a wide variety of topics. We like to think it is one of the most comprehensive NWN2 sites on the web.

The site is currently staffed by the site administrator, forum moderators and content staff including me. I guess I should probably introduce myself. I'm Dwight Kubach, better known as kgambit on the Thieves Guild and Bioware forums. I'm currently the content editor for the Thieves guild website and part time forum moderator (when I'm not busy building more content).

Read the rest of the interview after the jump.

The ninth in a series of articles by Ossian Studios designed to introduce NWN 2 players to Westgate has been published on the official forums. Entitled "The Rise of the Ebon Claws", the Ebon Claws are giving the Night Masques a run for the money:

You underestimate us, just as the Night Masks did before we uprooted them from the Harbor Loop. We may not be as strong as they, but we are many - and we have powerful allies that they do not know of. Yes, yes, very powerful and very well-placed allies.

- Altama, Ebon Claw Guild Member

Check out the story behind the Ebon Claws by clicking below.

Rob McGinnis has not posted a community blog in almost a month but to tide everyone over for the next little while, he has posted the notes for the upcoming v1.13 patch.

It's been a while since the last community update. As such, I thought I would give you a little teaser for some of the 1.13 patch notes, while I write the real Community Update. Please remember that this list is very much incomplete.

Bug Fixes

General

* The toolset and game now load hak files in the same order.
* Skills such as Search will no longer broadcast multiple messages to the chat window while in use. A single message will be displayed when turning the skill on or off.

Multiplayer

* The chat channel will no longer revert to Local when a player transitions to a new area or module.

The rest of the notes are posted after the jump.