Just Doesn't Seem Right... (modding question)

[Mozenwrathe]

Take a look at Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II.
They have literally over a dozen excellent non-player character henchmen developed for party usage. I could post some of the links here, but that would be a little off-topic (except for purpose of example).

Now, take a look at NeverWinter Nights. Notice no real excellent (plug and play) NPC henchmen come to mind as designed by the general community? Sure, you could easily alter absolutely everything around the characters (and people have), but making new NPC henchmen which could fit into any campaign was made terrifyingly difficult - at least as far as I can tell.

Do you think NeverWinter Nights lost anything by losing such great customization in their support cast, or do you believe that the sacrifice was worth it as then it was far easier to create entire worlds than ever before to stroll around? I for one have yet to play Baldur's Gate or Baldur's Gate II all the way through, so I am not sure how all the NPC henchmen you can acquire really affect the game personally. Then again, I have yet to play NeverWinter Nights all the way through. I did enjoy the numerous interactions you could have with your party in the original Baldur's Gate, however. (And if anyone can direct me to the link with the Driz'zt Do'Urden module for Baldur's Gate II, I would be very appreciative.) I know that people (within their own modules) have made some striking henchmen available in NeverWinter Nights: half-dragons, demon princes who were deposed, fallen elven paladins, at least one vampire (for a Ravenloft-based game), the legendary Tomi Undergallows, and even *shudders* kender. However, those henchmen weren't really transportable the way the henchmen designs were for Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II.

And as an aside to NeverWinter Nights 2: do you believe they'll be making it possible to make great non-player character henchmen (preferably in PARTIES again) as well as to build your world up as you see fit?

[ 08-18-2006, 07:35 AM: Message edited by: Mozenwrathe ]

[robertthebard]

Henchman creation is a pretty open thing in NWN's. You just have to be willing to do a lot of work to get them together. There are so many variables to take into consideration when you are trying to do interactions between NPC's, with the PC, etc., that most builders don't really take that time when putting a module together. Adding one NPC to a campaign wouldn't be all that hard, but trying to do a whole group of them runs into interesting things like:

Who's in party?
How well do they get along?
This can get really interesting, but then you have to do that for every NPC, and for every action the PC makes, etc. To make truly good NPC's isn't anywhere near impossible now, but the amount of work required to get the banters like party members in BG/BG2 would take a month's worth of scripting to pull off, on top of building the world.