1/26/00 - Latest News
Beleriand Review is up
Berendir @ 12:47 EST
Smaug, my Mud and Mush reviewer has just finished reviewing the MUSH Beleriand. There maybe another, more thorough, review on Beleriand in the future, when more people start entering the Mush. Check out the reviews Here.
1/25/00 - Latest News
2nd MEO Congress
Berendir @ 14:58 EST
This is a site which was created only a few short days ago. Heres some information on its goals: The objective of The Second MEO Congress is to continue that of the former MEPC. We are attempting to get the programmers of MEO to make the best possible RPG and a game that is the most true to Tolkien. Theres not much there now, but I'm sure the webpage will develop in the future, especially when Middle Earth Online finds a new staff and begins development again. Source: 2nd Middle Earth Congress Site
1/20/00 - Latest News
War of the Ring
Berendir @ 19:40 EST
This looks to be an interesting game. It is just like War Craft 2, only there have been many changes made to it. Heres some info on War of the Ring: "War of the Ring" is a Total Conversion of the game "WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness", and the expansion pack "Beyond the Dark Portal". It will feature new units, graphics, and missons based on the triology "Lord of the Rings" by the late Professor John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. The conversion is not ready yet, but a multiplayable beta will hopefully be released before the year 2000 Heres a little information about the differences between War craft 2, and War of the Ring. WarCraft II is basically a strategy game, and so will WotR be, with a touch of some RPG. (Like guiding Gandalf to Dol Guldur) Go check out the site if your interested on learning more about this game.
WarCraft II: War of the Ring, or WotR for short, will change about everything in War2: New campaigns, multiplayer levels, unit graphics/names, and most important of all, unit statistics. Previously all the units had the same statistics; the Footman was the counterpart of the Grunt, Ogre counterpart to the Knight, and so on. Only thing separating the two races was the spells. This time has passed :)
Source: War of the Ring Site
1/18/00 - Latest News
More on NWN
Berendir @ 18:59 EST
Heres some more pieces of info on Neverwinter Nights. NPC Interaction with other NPC's In NWN you can set up NPCs to walk up to other NPCs and begin dialogue as if they were a PC. We can have two old men who meet daily, sit down and play chess. One could complain about the other being late, triggering conversation in which the other old guy gets all crusty in response to the insults. This could degenerate into a fight or they could sit down and begin play. Multiple Things 1) As Ratber #CP# said, you could run two versions of the server on the same machine at the same time. For a head to head adventure you may want two parties in the same module, with different objectives or the same objectives, for real head to head competition 3) The various options are still under design. The chat box and caption mode are not exclusive, as you can set all messages to appear in your chat box even if they appear on the screen. There is a radius of "hearing" which will block messages past a certain distance from appearing unless they are "shouted". 4) The situation you mention has the party commiting an evil act. The parties reputaion will decrease, possibly changin the alignment of one or more players, possibly even the Paldin for traveling with a group of nasty individuals. For a real answer, the DM can do almost anything he/she wants. If you desire to strip the character of all his/her xp, go ahead. If you abuse the power, players won't play on your server. Communication We intend to have some form of true, real-time voice-comm (ie: you speak into a microphone and I hear it in real-time on my computer). Source: Neverwinter Nights Vault
The scripting language gives a huge amount of power to the module creator to implement whatever he/she desires
2) The PvP switch can cover the server, or it can be bound to areas within the module. For instance the city could be a non-PvP area while the sewers below are a PvP area.
We'll also be implementing a reasonably complex Tribes-style hotkeyed voice system, as well (ie: you press a hot-key and it triggers a pre-existing voice file on my computer). Various basic sounds such as injuries and death sounds would also be a part of this system, though probably not associated with a specific hot-key. I'm pretty sure we'll be allowing you to import custom voice files but, as was the case with BG, anyone who doesn't have the files on their computer will simply hear a default. It's not clear yet whether we'll do an in-game upload/download for the voices. They might be too big.
1/13/00 - Latest News
The Progress of NWN
Berendir @ 15:49 EST
Progress report on Neverwinter Nights December was a good month for programming, with substantial progress on the area transition system and the AI pathfinding code. We now have an annoying NPC (shades of "Noober," anyone?) who will blindly follow you from area to area. The chat system is progressing well, with the basic system functional and working well. On the graphics engine front, we have added a few new visual effects and refined the tools for art creation. Our next demo is going to look amazing. ART: For the Art Department, December was all about concepting. We put a lot of thought and argument into the in-game user interfaces and came up with a format that we're quite happy with. There are still a few quirks to be worked out, of course, but we'll be able to get a better handle on things as we move from the concept stage and into the implementation of a few working prototypes. Additionally, we burned a fair amount of time into art scheduling and personnel planning to make sure that the department's a well-oiled machine in time for our headlong dive into full implementation. DESIGN: The design group spent December creating implementation plans for the first modules in the first environment. The plan for module 101 spans 35 tight single-spaced pages, with every detail you need to know to build the entire module. The effort spent now on the implementation plans will save a ton of effort in the implementation and testing stages, later in the development cycle. We're also busy balancing our spell lists and detailing the various game effects for the programmers to start working on. Overall, December went quite well. Every day I see some new idea or new interpretation of our vision, making the experience of working on NWN a magical one. The ideas and suggestions on the message boards continue to amaze me and drive the team forward. We can't imagine a better project to be working on. Source: Neverwinter Nights Vault
PROGRAMMING:
1/07/00 - Latest News
World Size and Playing a Monster in NWN
Berendir @ 20:38 EST
How big can worlds be? How big: as big as you want. Each actual encounter area is limited to 32x32 tiles. That is a very big space to run around in. At the fastest character speed running in a straight line, it still takes a couple of minutes to cross. That's just one area. There is no real limit to the number of areas in the World Map; just memory on your pc I suppose….so you can have very large world maps made of linked areas. You can also link to other servers, allowing players to cross from your world map, to another DM's world map. One good idea is to trade NPC's and areas with other DM's…you could go find a cool innkeeper NPC on the net, and drop his Smugglers Inn down in your town, then grab a bunch of other NPC's to put in the tavern, then take one of our dungeon crawls and start modifying…you could end up with a very detailed world, quite quickly…. Maybe some of the DM's could start writing NPC's now…we might have chance to add any cool ones we happen to receive into a module…. Will I be able to play as a Monster? Well, I opened my big mouth didn't I...we haven't totally decided how his will work, but MOST LIKELY, you will NOT get a full scale character sheet as a monster, you will only have the stats and equipment the DM has given the creature. I don't think monsters will be able to earn XP...you'd have to ask Scott about that one....if you wanted to play a monster as a continuing character, you would need a lot of help from a live DM. Now if your playing in a small group, on a server with a DM available, that should be very possible...it could be quite cool...
How long: well that is relative…we are building the Solstice editor to be very fast and easy to get started, but to allow a lot of depth. So I'd say you can make a basic area, just lay out some landscape and town tiles in only 10 or 15 minutes. It's filling that area with interesting NPC's, quests and encounters that can take as little or as long as you like. You have the option to write all new dialogue for NPC's, customize monster behavior, set up chains of events…just about anything our designers can do here…so if you want a huge city, with hundreds of unique characters, you can do it, but it may become a week, or a month, or a year worth of work!… (Realy what I'm saying is that it's just like pen and paper D&D).
Source: Neverwinter Nights Vault
1/03/00 - Latest News
Death and the solstice toolset in NWN
Berendir @ 19:24 EST
The focus with NWN is to put as much power as possible in the hands of the module creator and the DM as possible. As far as character death, we are supporting a large number of options for when the character dies, from a Quake-style quick respawn to a permanent death setting, where death is final. Solstice is the toolset we will ship with NWN. If we can pull it off, we will include the toolset in the possible public beta test at a later date. With regards to the message boards, I can tell you the rest of us love them as much as you do, if not more.
Source: Neverwinter Nights Vault