New 'Shadows of Undrentide' interview!

[Dreamer128]

From; http://pc.ign.com/articles/389/389556p1.html

March 14, 2003 - The world of Neverwinter Nights stands out for two really compelling reasons. First, it displayed the same superb production values of the BioWare team, easily among the best developers of single-player roleplaying games in business.

But Neverwinter Nights was made even better by the addition of a flexible module creation tool that could be tweaked on the fly as players made their way through adventures you created. And while a lot of the user-created content is top-notch, there's a new module in the works that actually expands the tools available in the Aurora Toolset.

We managed to secure an interview with the folks behind this latest module to ask them about their experiences with the tool and to find out what kinds of new features would be added.

IGNPC: Tell us a bit about the single-player side of Undrentide. When and where does the adventure take place?

Undrentide Development Team: The story starts in a small village in the Silver Marches, called Hilltop, where the player is a student of a powerful wizard. Some raiders from the Nether Mountains attack the school, steal some very important artifacts, and poison your master. Your job then is to help protect Hilltop and recover the stolen artifacts. This exciting trail will lead the player to the hot and deadly Anauroch desert and beyond.

IGNPC: What's the basic setup of the story? What connections will it have to the original Neverwinter Nights?

Undrentide Development Team: Shadows of Undrentide takes place at about the same time as the original story, and that is about all they have in common. We wanted the players to explore the fascinating world of Faerün, and see the diverse and rich regions it has to offer.

IGNPC: You've added lots of new abilities. What sort of new feats or spells can we expect? Was it difficult designing them so that they could be used in the original game?

Undrentide Development Team: We were sure to add something for each class. For example, the Druid now can now enhance their animal companion with the "magic fang" spell, Clerics can now choose the powerful "Sunburst," and Rangers gain "One with the land." Fighters can choose the feat "Dirty Fighting" that allows the player to deal extra damage in combat. Roguish types can take the feat "Sneaky" that makes them harder for enemies to find.

The biggest difficulty when adding these was to make sure they worked in the original game, and all the modules designed by the community. We asked the test team to pound on those areas again and again through the original game to make sure nothing went wrong.

IGNPC: Tell us about the new prestige classes. What do they add to the game and how are they integrated?

Undrentide Development Team: We are actually adding five new prestige classes. Assassins, deadly silent killers; Arcane Archers, who cast magic attacks through their arrows; Blackguards, the anti-paladin; Harpers, members of a secret society dedicated to holding back evil; and Shadowdancers, a class that, not surprisingly, works with and manipulates shadows.

Each class has special prerequisites the player needs to achieve before being able to use that class. For example, the Assassin and Blackguard class are only available for players with an evil alignment, and players can only become Arcane Archers if they can cast spells.

IGNPC: We also hear you've thrown in a new type of weapon -- like a medieval Molotov cocktail. Can you explain a bit about how these work?

Undrentide Development Team: Our grenade-like weapons are a lot of fun. Lower level parties can use them so they can do damage to creatures in the same way higher level magic spells can. We have a firebomb, a vile of holy water you can use on the undead, for thieves and archers we have caltrops to slow down pursuers, and tanglefoot bags that stop bad guys in their tracks, allowing archers to shoot them from a safe distance.

IGNPC: You've added a whole batch of new monsters too. Any favorites?

Undrentide Development Team: The FloodGate artists have done a very good job creating the new monsters for Shadows of Undrentide, and we are having lots of fun playing against them. My favorites have to be the ones that can turn the player into stone (a new effect for Shadows of Undrentide), such the cockatrice and basilisks; they become much more frightening when you know they can turn you into Greek art.

IGNPC: The point of Undrentide is partly to expand the toolset, right? What does it add for the module-designing crowd? What do we get in the way of new tiles and scripts?

Undrentide Development Team: All the new items our designers have used to build the world of Shadows of Undrentide will be available in the toolset. Included are the desert tileset, a winter version of the rural tileset used in the original game, and a unique ruins tileset that allows a module builder to create an indoor and outdoor environment without any screen transitions. We are including the plot wizard released by the BioWare Live Team to help people create quests easier, and we are adding a trap wizard that allows the module builder to make projectile traps; you could just be walking along and then an arrow could fly out of the wall at you. It really adds a lot of variety to the types of traps you can come across.

IGNPC: The original Neverwinter Nights seemed to evolve alongside the Aurora toolset. How has it been different designing this game with most of the tools already in place? How is Aurora as a start-to-finish development tool?

Undrentide Development Team: It is a very powerful toolset and very easy to use, and our designers have been pushing it to the limit with this expansion. They are making it do amazing things. There is a part in one dungeon where the designer has kobolds jumping into a basket. I saw that and thought, "That's impossible, how did he do that?" The designers are using the toolset in a lot of really innovative ways, and anyone who played Neverwinter Nights should be really impressed...and surprised by how different the game can play at times.

IGNPC: Has the module benefited from the efforts of the large community of module builders? Are there any lessons the community has taught you?

Undrentide Development Team: Absolutely. We have played as many of the user created modules as we could find, and most of them are amazing in some way. They inspire us to push ourselves to go further. We are constantly comparing what we are doing with the best of the modules; if we do not measure up, we re-do it. We have hired a couple of the community module builders who created extremely good mods, and brought them to Edmonton to work with us. We have such an amazing fan community; without their support, Neverwinter Nights wouldn't be nearly as successful as it is today.

-- Steve Butts

[philip]

SoU sounds cool. I hope the campaign is better than the OC whíchI can't play for longer than 5 minutes when it becomes boring.
thanks for posting

[SpiritWarrior]

Yes it does, thank you Dreamer for posting this [img]smile.gif[/img] .