Neverwinter Nights Interview
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GB: Can you give us any idea of how many magic items will be available in the single-player version of the game? Assuming that some of the more famous weapons from 3rd edition D&D will be available (Flame Tongue, Nine Lives Stealer, Sun Blade, etc), will any of these possess graphical effects, such as the blade of Flame Tongue actually projecting a flame? Greg: The answer to this is easy - hundreds! The last time I used the tools and saw the number of items in the game I was flabbergasted! There are literally dozens of items of every imaginable type. Even more impressive is that you will be able to build new items in the tool set and use them in the campaign if you wish.
With regard to graphical effects on items, we actually attach the visual effect to the designed effect - if you choose the flaming attribute the sword will have a flame effect. The same goes if you choose a frost effect - it's all automatic so the player doesn't have to worry about it. Thus the player focuses only on design of a module, and not the art details.
GB: Would it be possible to get a lengthy description of how a character's death will be handled? How much experience will he lose, and could this loss result in the loss of a level? If so, could a person change the class he chose to level in initially when he regains the lost level?
Greg: We're still working out the details of how player death will be handled. When the final design is determined we will make it public. Unfortunately I can't do so now.
GB: Is there any new information on how the Official Vault will be maintained? With your recent publisher changes, do you still intend to make the official servers free of charge?
Greg: We've been spending a significant amount of time in the last few weeks planning out how our community site is going to work. In short, it's going to be very impressive. We are creating a location that all players of Neverwinter Nights will gather and exchange information. We'll have more information on this as it develops.
GB: Jay Watamaniuk's recent Q&A on the official Bioware forums states that DMs will not be able to take control of player characters. What options will a DM have if a character is doing whatever he can to make the game miserable for the rest of the party? Can a DM simply boot him from the game at any time?
Greg: One fairly safe rule to follow in game development is that it always sucks to lose control of your character - we agree with this. The host of the server (who incidentally doesn't have to be the DM) will have the ultimate power over who can play on the server. We still evaluating a system in which DMs will also be granted this power - we'll discuss this when it is resolved.
GB: Over a year ago, it was stated that NWN will offer over 200 spells. Has this number changed at all since then? How much variety will there be in high-level spells, and will some monsters be immune to them, such as the more powerful creatures in Throne of Bhaal?
Greg: I asked someone to count how many spells there are in the game and they refused, complaining there are too many. There are a lot of spells - around the 200 we originally discussed - we haven't specifically changed the goals with spells in any way. There are quite a few higher level spells (with really amazing effects) and we'll be following the game rules with regard to monster spell immunities - monsters will be immune if they're supposed to be, according to the rules.
I'd like to say thanks to everyone at BioWare, especially Greg, for taking the time to answer our questions. We hope you enjoyed reading his answers.
