WarCry: I would like thank everyone for joining us on the first Official Dev Chat for NWN2.
WarCry: After the chat we will post the log on http://nwn2.warcry.com

WarCry: and now the Obsidian Devs can will introduce themselves and we will begin with the questions.
FerretB: Ferret Baudoin here, Lead Designer. :)
FrankK: Frank Kowalkowski, Lead Programmer, evening all
JohnM: John Morgan, Associate Producer NWN2 (y)
MaverickShane: Hi all Im shane DeFreest the Community Manager for NWN2. thank you all for coming and thank you Warcry for hosting.
DarrenM: I'm Darren Monahan, I'm the producer on NWN2 and one of the co-pwners of Obsidian - evening all!
TramellI: Tramell T.Ray Isaac LEad Artist
AdamB: Adam Brennecke, Programmer

WarCry: Kaftan Barlast: Im asking if you feel that the time you were given for NWN2 was enough to get everything you wanted to in the game? And How long would the ideal development cycle for a game of NWN2s size be?
DarrenM: Kaftan: Well, during every game you always seem to want more time - There's no doubt NWN2 is a huge project, but when we ship, I think we're going to happy with how much time we had to work on the game
FerretB: Kaftan: In one sense, there's never ever enough time in development. It's like art, you can keep touching up one more thing until Doomsday. We have a solid good team and enough time to make a great game. Would I like more time? Always. :)

WarCry: MoebiuZ[nwn2-esp]: You use per-pixel lighting with normal mapping. How this affects community modelers and their new content hak packs? They have to generate normal maps as well?
TramellI: The process will be a lot more involved but not impossible
TramellI: Artist/modders will have to be familiar with the tools that create normal maps
FrankK: MoebuiZ[nwn2-esp]: Content will require normal mapped objects. The game is entirely per-pixel lit.

WarCry: sly_1: I've heard a lot about the enhancements made to multiplayer. Specifically, I've heard about "mmo elements" making their way into NWN2's multiplayer interface. Care to expand a bit on what has been implemented and what is planned?
DarrenM: Sure - We've done a couple things. First our hopeless addictions to popular MMO's out there have leaked a few interface and emote-like commands into NWN2. For example, we offer another 'input' mode for the game, where you can now select objects in the game world much like WoW. We're also adding silly emotes and other visual feedback that wasn't in NWN1.
DarrenM: Image /dance.... wow.
DarrenM: err, Imagine.
FrankK: We are talking about streamlining some of the interfaces (trading, conversing) so they are intuitive to the end-user.

WarCry: nixion: Hey, Q: I think one of the trademarks of the original NWN was the fact that every installment of the game was in third person. In NWN 2 will we have the feature go in First Person?
FerretB: There's no first person camera. But there's going to be a lot of flexibility in how you position your camera. Third-person, over-the-shoulder, zoom in, and zoom out. Lots of possibilities. :)
DarrenM: I was going to say, "While we made a much bigger emphasis on close up cameras and such in NWN2, the game is still very much an isometric/3rd person game. You can swing the camera in though, but it wasn't specifically designed for first person, no

WarCry: Salvator: Will the single player Arcs be more dynamic? Playing Evil was not very... evil in the first game.
TramellI: woot
DarrenM: I think the question is, will playing good be fun in NWN2? :)
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.
FerretB: I think we're shooting for more malevolent than psycotic, generally. It can also be quite fun - hee hee.
DarrenM: Frank says the engine doesn't support evil. Hmmm.

WarCry: 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?
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.
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.

WarCry: Quake: Is it possible to modify certain aspects of the character creation interface? For example, if in a module I wanted to restrict the alignment choice for a ranger to "good" only, would I be able to have the other alignment choices shaded out (not selectable)?
FrankK: There will be some ability to restrict alignment in the campaign settings, but it will be overriden by class restrictions (ie cant force chaotic monks)

WarCry: Emmental: As a scripter in NWN, I used dynamically created conversations to create menus for player input, which was a little fiddly and complicated. Are there going to be new ways for scripters to get input from players?
DarrenM: We've added some basic controls for creating UI's via script... more on that is coming soon :)

WarCry: 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?
DarrenM: Tramell says either PDiddy or Dr. Dre

WarCry: metallix|rpgplanet-ru: How will be monsters and encounters placed throughout the game map, in scaling difficulty, or randomly, as in Gothic?
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.
FerretB: So a combination, really - but it won't be crazy random.

WarCry: KnightMB: Will less computer savvy people be able to customize the game's music, potraits, facial features, etc without having to result to a little file hacking here and there?
DarrenM: We've changed the way data is structured in the game from the original. We don't have .BIF files anymore or other proprietary formats. Our data containers are basically ZIP files now. If you know how to use ZIP files, you can change things easily
DarrenM: Also, NWN2 uses 3D portraits based off your characters current head.

WarCry: Drathlin: Will the game involve pornography/adault themes/vulgar language? I want to get it for my son, but I'm not sure on the maturity level?
DarrenM: Hi Drathlin, that's a great question. We're shooting for a "Teen" rating on the game, and the folks at Hasbro are sensitive to that as well. NWN2 won't have vulgar language or any form of pornography
DarrenM: Now... the development of the project... that's another story.
DarrenM: (thanks Frank :))
FerretB: We're shooting for a Teen rating, so it should be safe for children. The story, however, has real issues and touch upon deep subjects. There won't be any porn or stuff like that - but it'll be hard-hitting.

WarCry: 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?
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.

WarCry: 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?
CharlesM: If they like it enough and open the toolset, they may learn to be game developers!
FerretB: Personally, I found RPGs seriously educational in my life - no joke.
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.

WarCry: DLA_Bannor: Will the Radial menu system be kept? Will we be able to assign/hotkey something to a custom radial, IE 1 to all your 1st level spells?
DarrenM: Yep, we're going to have the new radial menu. We have some new UI bits too that make casting spells really quick with our QuickSpell interface.
DarrenM: Also, the layout of our radial menus are defined in XML, so a modder can change the look and position of the controls.

WarCry: xXNightElfXx: What can you customize on your character? I.e. Blue eyes, green hair, black skin, strong, ect?
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
DarrenM: Frank sez we support per-pixel level tinting. That sounds really cool, but not really sure what that means ;)
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.

WarCry: 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?
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.

WarCry: DelmarWynn: What improvements have you done on the toolset? Such as performance in loading areas and working with large scale area?
DarrenM: One of my favorite changes to the toolset is that everything is now dockable. You can work on multiple areas, with multiple scripting and dialog windows open all at the same time. We put a lot of effort into making sure you didn't have to have modal dialog boxes.
FrankK: there ya go =) there's also the ability to create your own trees, raise/lower terrain, set the day/night cycle colors, set the cloud cover, etc
CharlesM: Oh man! the improvements are many! The ability to work with multiple areas and scripts simultaneously is phenomenal.
CharlesM: Object properties show up in the blink of an eye.

WarCry: Thoronen: regarding the heightmaps in the terrain editor....how much 'resolution' will we have to play with. For example, can we make really crinkly trrain similar to a lava flow?
AdamB: The resolution is a fixed size
AdamB: about 1 meter

FrankK: thank you all for taking the time, /wave

WarCry: Well that about wraps it up for tonight. We appreciate everyone's time and even though not all questions could be answered. We hope you enjoyed it
FerretB: Thanks everyone. Have a good evening. :)
WarCry: Thanks for coming everyone! And a HUGE thanks to the Obsidian team for their time tonight!
AdamB: Thanks everyone!
JohnM: Thanks for all the interest everyone