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Rob Bartel Interview - Page Three |
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Q: How difficult will it be for his companions to resurrect him (how much will it cost, how “available” are raise dead scrolls, etc)? If the party has quite a trek to the nearest town, the person could potentially be waiting a long time, correct? During this time, if a player goes linkdead, or the module ends, can he potentially lose his equipment?
A: A lot of this will be determined as part of our testing and balancing process toward the end of our development cycle. In order to encourage cooperative play, however, the availability of such items will probably be reasonably high within the official campaign. In your own modules, the availability is yours to determine, of course. Should the module end or the player lose his or her connection while in a dead state, it will be assumed that he or she chose to be raised at the temple and the character will suffer the requisite experience penalty but no loss of items.
Q: What measures have been taken to keep a player from "pulling the plug" on his internet connection when a battle is going bad? Will he just go linkdead and remain in the world for "x" number of seconds/minutes like other online games? If a player does go "linkdead" while in combat, will their character automatically fight back? or will he/she just stand there and take damage until dead?
A: Should the player lose their connection while in combat, their character will go into a defensive stance and do their best to avoid any incoming attacks. If the connection has not been re-established before a timeout period expires, the character will then be removed from the gameworld. If the character has died in the interim, it will be assumed that he or she chose to suffer the requisite penalty in order to be raised at the temple before exiting the game.
Q: We realize the game is quite a few months away, but has there been any sort of plan on having a public beta test of NWN? If so, is there any projected timeframe?
A: We have discussed the advantages and possibility of having a limited public beta of Neverwinter Nights towards the end of our development cycle. If we do decide to have one, we will announce it on our official sites: www.neverwinternights.com and www.bioware.com and you will be able to apply at that time.
In conclusion, I'd like to issue a sincere thank you to Rob and the rest of the crew at BioWare for making this interview possible. I hope all of you enjoy reading about NWN as much as we do =).
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| Article Details |
| Interviewer Jon "Buck" Birnbaum
Interviewed Rob Bartel
Co-Lead Designer
Neverwinter Nights
BioWare Corp.
Published 12/07/00 |
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