Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update #4

Obsidian's public relations manager Shane DeFreest has once again stopped by the official Neverwinter Nights 2 forums to provide us with a fourth community update for the game. Good stuff:
Well this week has been a bust week and most of the information I would normally post here in the update has already filtered out piecemeal. So for those of you that have your eyes glued to the Official Forums most this will largely be yesterdays news.

First off we'd like to thank our friends at NWN Down Under for posting a great interview on crafting. If you have not seen it yet you should definitely check it out!

http://www.nwndownunder.net/portal.php

As previously mentioned we'd like to welcome Selene Moonsong as new moderator to the official forums and lastly as of our discussions with the publisher this week expect nwn2.com to go back online early next week.

We've taken allot of the community feedback into account so there should be some subtle changes here and there that should please people. At the time of the re-launch we'll have over 50+ sites listed in the community section. So keep sending me your site information so we can get you listed in an official capacity.

And now onto your questions...

1) Will there be any planar monsters besides the infamously overdone plane touched or Celestials?

Ferret: We've got a decent selection of planar critters to select from (over 10) - demons, devils, githyanki, imps, and more. Some haven't been seen before in a D&D RPG but many are some fan favorites (well, at least they're some of my favorites). Expect some more specific monster information later on.

2) How much will the AI of diferent Beasty's differ, as in wolfs actually pack hunting while a dumb zomby just mindelelssly strolls toward nearest thing, and orc's raising alarm/battlecrying when the engage a PC?

Ferret: There isn't much I can say about AI right now. We're making sure right now that all our new AI works like a champ before commenting on them.

3) Are there going to be tools built into the toolset to create your own monster?

Ferret: If you're talking about creating models, then I'm afraid not. Modern art creation tools are really wonders to behold and expensive to license. It wouldn't be practically feasible to release something like this with our game. But the same graphics tools the community used in NWN1 could be used to create NWN2 assets, although it will require some ramp up because of the new technology we're using in our game.

4) If you are fighting one or more monsters, and they sense that it will be exceedingly hard for them to defeat you, will they run away to get help/call for help?

Ferret: We're working on fun stuff like this and more. We call what you described here as coward AI and you can do what you're describing. QA is currently pounding on it, so the exact specifics of it may change based off of usability feedback.

5) It has been said that in the toolset you will be able to create templates of multiple placeables which can then be placed as a group. Will this same methodolgy be used for creature building?

Ferret: We call them "prefabs" and you could just as easily make a group of creatures you can place as you want as you could a collection of other objects. It's really quite a powerful tool for everyone, because if you make some amazingly intricate room that looks awesome you can make a prefab of everything and then reuse it. Thus giving mod builders both flexibility and ease of use.