11/28/99 - Latest News
More on Neverwinter Nights
Berendir @ 3:33 pm EST
Some more pieces of information from the Neverwinter Nights Vault
Heres something interesting on creating iteams, and scripting:
If you use the item editor in combination with the scripting language, you can make almost anything happen. For instance, you could script your module so that every time a dwarf equips the special battleaxe he inherited from his great-grandfather, the spirits of his ancestors come to fight at his side. You could even give these ancestral spirits specific roles to play in the your plot, with whatever dialog you feel is appropriate. If you care to get even more complex, you could even go as far as to say that each time one of these spirits is defeated or destroyed, the axe (and perhaps even the dwarf who wields it) loses some of its/his power and potency. With a little bit of work and scripting knowledge, some really cool stuff like this is more than possible. And, yes, anything involving scripting will be module-dependant. If this dwarf enters a module without the relevant scripting, his ancestral axe will just be another normal battle-axe +1, +2 vs giants (or whatever).
Heres info on the ability to protect doors with passwords:
I hadn't thought of it in that specific way but, yes, you certainly can. We haven't decided whether we'll be including Magic Mouth, per se, but you do the same thing with a golem of some sort or, for that matter, just script the actual door to open and close based on someone saying the appropriate word(s).
11/26/99 - Latest News
A Response to Elenduil
Berendir @ 11:19 pm EST
Jari responded to Elenduil's post about writing up a formal document for the new Dev. Team of Middle Earth. Heres what he had to say:
I was reading Elenduil's post below and thought to myself, "Ah what the heck, I was around for the original, and I am a gluton for punishment, so why not me?"
I am now refitting my now extint Circle of the Blue Moon home page to be used for this endevor. But I don't want to stiffle the creativity that flows so freely on this board. So I am ready to recive any ideas that we should but in the constitution. These ideas must effect the bacic gameplay of the game, I will not take detailed ideas such as, "Axes should do 8 HP damage" but I will take "Axes should do more damage then swords or smaller blades"
I will compile all these ideas, and the names and E-mail address of all the people sending them and we will work on the organization of it all later. Right now, if you have ideas send them my way. If not get thinking.
If you want to contribute ideas, go to the Middle Earth Vault and check out the Dev. Board.
Some Info On NWN
Berendir @ 10:14 am EST
Heres a bunch of bits of Info from the Neverwinter Nights Vault.
Heres some news on names:
When you examine a character you will see both the player name and the character name. For Vault characters the names will be exclusive. We have also been discussing the removal of numbers from the names field, so you couldn't do Gandalf_432. On non-vault games, the names are open, so it will be totally possible to have an entire party of Bob the adventurer
Oh look, Gandalf got a mention!
Heres something interesting, you can create books:
You can create new books with custom titles and contents using the tool set and place them in a dungeon. We don't have any current plans for allowing this to occur during game play, but I can see the need for DM's to have this ability so we will look into it later.
Heres some technical information on layers and different modules:
There are very good technical reasons why we use different models instead of layering different cloths over a basic model. The main reason is speed. If you are layering stuff, there are a lot of polygons and textures that just aren't contributing to look of the character, but are still costing memory and render time. Since a large amount of our poly and texture budget is reservered for characters, we use the savings to either display more characters or make them look better.
Maybe some day we will be able to ignore such techincal limitations such as polygon count and texture memory, but not in the immediate future
11/24/99 - Latest News
Elenduil Speaks About Organization
Berendir @ 11:12 pm EST
I found an interesting post from Elenduil on the Middle Earth Dev. Board. It points out a direction which would better served for the people that frequent the MEDev board to follow.
Long ago, a good deal of us formed a coalition for the creation of a "roleplaying constitution" of sorts. Despite less than stellar leadership in that organization *coughs*, we did manage to complete two chapters of our constitution. It was a grand, almost melodramatic venture, but it was at the very least enjoyable and educational (though not fruitful).
The old development team is gone, and the new one has not yet arrived. Thus, my friends, I see very little point in posting ideas that will be pushed down into oblivion before the new developers even arrive on the scene. Perhaps a more productive venture would be to collect these ideas into a sort of constitution, or pamphlet if you so desire, which can then be presented to the team when they do make their presence known.
Fruitfully time-consuming, or wastefully unnecessary? Hmmmm.....
There are those who hold out that this project has no place to go but down from its current position. I am of this mindset also, but that is irrelevant. There are certain ideas on this board that deserve saving, and a one-time post will not be heeded. Reiteration of a post is monotonous and annoying. Thus, a collective entity of thoughts and ideas might serve your purposes better.
If there are those who so choose to attempt such a venture, then they have my blessing and best wishes. I do not envy the person who would head such an endeavor.
Anyone out there that still has enough interest in Middle Earth Online to take on that challenge? Not I, I spent my time following that game in the past, and I don't think I want to spend too much time on it again, not till I see some renewed promise in it. Anyhow, best luck to anyone that wants to help out with that project.
New Gaming Poll
Berendir @ 1:37 pm EST
Well the last poll is done, and the results weren't surprising. About thirty percent of the people agreed that The One Ring would be the coolest artifact to have in a Middle Earth Role Playing Game.
However my personal favorite, the Nauglamir had ten percent of the votes, which isn't bad considering its a Dwarven iteam, and most people aren't Dwarves.
The next poll will help show the interest level in certain games out that pertaining to anything Tolkien.
11/23/99 - Latest News
Portraits in Worldforge
Berendir @ 9:49 pm EST
Theres been lots of recent updates to the Worldforge site lately, as well as some new additions to their portrait gallery.
If your interested in seeing some of the art that will be included in the game, then go Here.
NWN Movie and More
Berendir @ 6:22 pm EST
Heres a couple of bits of info from the Neverwinter Nights vault.
If you saw the Neverwinter Nights movie video, then this may be of interest:
The artistic content of the demo (models, textures, animations, GUI) is a preliminary prototype only, built to test object heirarchies, polycounts, resolutions, ease of use, and a variety of other technical things. Our prototyping team did a great job and the fact that they were able to make it look good, to boot, was really icing on the cake. We're using their work as a guide but all of what you've seen in the prototype screens is slowly getting replaced with final game art that's looking and working even better.
Heres some info on Customization:
From a philosophical standpoint, we want NWN to be as open and free-form as possible. User-end customization is a good thing, in our view, and to be encouraged wherever possible. There are still a number of technical hurdles to overcome, however, so that's why we've been quiet on the issue, as of late. We don't want to promise something that we may not be able to deliver and we don't want to give anyone any false hopes. In other words, as development progresses and we get a chance to run our ideas through some real-life tests, we'll get back to you. Until then, you'll simply have to bear with us and hope for the best on this issue.
11/22/99 - Latest News
Building Defaults and Scripting Death
Berendir @ 2:52 pm EST
News on Neverwinter Nights, from the Neverwinter Nights Vault.
Defaults are just that: defaults. You're more than welcome to go in and customize to your heart's content.
As for being limited to two interior tilesets (plus any applicable sub-tilesets), look at it this way: We're building all of Neverwinter with a single tileset and all of Luskan with another. Each city consists of about 5 aboveground areas and each of those areas consists of 1024 tiles. If two tilesets are enough to keep that interesting, I would think that your interiors will be just fine.
Heres something cool, it has to do with things you can do about death in the world you host:
We will allow you to attach a script to the death of a character. What you do in that script is totally up to you.
So if you want to have famous last words, you can!
Reviews Section Updated
Berendir @ 2:39 pm EST
The Reviews to Middle Earth Online, Neverwinter Nights, and Worldforge are complete, and posted in the reviews section!
Smaug is working on some reviews for the Middle Earth MUDS out there, so look for those in the near future.
11/21/99 - Latest News
Building in Neverwinter Nights
Berendir @ 8:31 pm EST
Heres some cool news from the Neverwinter Nights Vault on Building interiors, and a few other things.
Building Interiors
To speed up the module creation process, each building comes with its own default custom interior. If you so choose, you can take the time to mix and match different exteriors and interiors (say you want a tavern inside an old manor house, for instance) or link the door to some non-building location (the mage tower that is actually a massive illusionary forest inside). You can understand why we wouldn't want to make you go through that process for every building in the city, though.
There will be a small degree of customizability of these interiors but for the most part it will be limited to swapping in a small number of pre-fab variant tiles (most buildings will have optional subterranean access, for example, because every good adventure needs to go underground at some point, right?).
That said, don't lose hope. We've set aside two whole tilesets for different kinds of castle interiors (castle exteriors are a sub-tileset of the two urban sets). These will allow you to paint down the interior of a building in the same way you would paint down a dungeon. There may be a few other sub-tilesets that might be appropriate to this as well. If you've got a building you want laid out in a very specific way, these castle tilesets are the way to do it.
Heres some info on the Graphics Engine:
What you are looking at in the demo is the unmodified Omen engine. We are currently reworking to handle the different requirements of NW vs. MDK2. For example, we will be implementing environment mapping for really cool metal and armor effects, and a completely new shadow system. It will be a while before we have some screen shots that show any new features, but we will post them when we have them.
11/20/99 - Latest News
Stephen Finds a Job
Berendir @ 8:24 pm EST
This news comes from the MEVault.
Incase you were concerned with how Stephen, ex member of the Middle Earth Online Dev team, was doing, heres some news from him:
I have recently accepted a job with Visual Concepts in San Rafael California. Visual Concepts is part of the SEGA family and is currently developing several interesting Dreamcast titles. You may know their two existing Dreamcast titles... NFL2K and NBA2K. I am pleased and excited to bring my skills to bear for Visual Concepts and SEGA. I'm sure that you will see many great things coming from this company in the future.
Congrats on finding yourself a new job Stephen, good luck with it.
Havens Update Report
Berendir @ 3:47 pm EST
Some new updates to report, and some more ones on the way. Check out the Upcoming Games section, there you'll find A page on Worldforge, Neverwinter Nights, and a revised page on Middle Earth Online.
Also, theres an update to the Trilogy page coming very shortly, along with the first additions to the Review section. I'll keep you posted on any further updates in the Havens.