An interview with Trent Oster about NWN:EE at pcgamesn.com

JuliusBorisov

A fantastic interview with Trent Oster about the history of NWN and hints at plans for the future of Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition.

Don't miss!

https://www.pcgamesn.com/neverwinter-nights-enhanced-edition/neverwinter-nights-modules

Dark_Ansem

“We’re trying to tread really cautiously in terms of the features we move forward with,” Oster tells us. “Our mandate is, ‘Don’t break anything that exists. Only add, don’t subtract, or revise’.”

I'm not complaining at all about adding (even if I'm curious on how BD will add new 3d assets in the same NWN style, if planned at all), but why no revision, @TrentOster ?

sandronejm

Yeah, should be a good to revise somethings at least with a community pool request.
They could do a poll and check for the most voted revisions positive and don't revise the negatives ones.

BelleSorciere

Revisions could break compatibility with older modules, possibly.

Dark_Ansem

Eventually necessary.

BelleSorciere

What is eventually necessary?

Trinital

BelleSorciere said:

Revisions could break compatibility with older modules, possibly.

Just to clarify, updating assets / artwork won't break anything - which is what most people want.
When beamdog says it will break older modules, they mean it will break the aesthetics of the modules.

The only thing stopping it is $$$.

BelleSorciere

Trinital said:

BelleSorciere said:

Revisions could break compatibility with older modules, possibly.

Just to clarify, updating assets / artwork won't break anything - which is what most people want.
When beamdog says it will break older modules, they mean it will break the aesthetics of the modules.

The only thing stopping it is $$$.

Uh huh. I'm sure they totally meant what you wrote and not what they actually said.

TheBarbarian

Trinital's right on that model- and texture updates won't necessarily break things. We're NWN modders, we know what we're talking about here; we've done the work ourselves. If inserted at the same step of the load order as the old Texture Pack patch, any module-attached content would just override the graphics upgrade again.

As long as no walkmeshes are being changed (and nobody's going completely bonkers with the new poly-count (and I'm not foolishly overlooking something crucial)), a graphics upgrade simply isn't able to break anything except for visual consistency, and, frankly, that's not a big thing with player-made modules anyway. We've got content ported from many different sources in many different styles and made by many different artists at many different skill levels. Tilesets would need to keep their current textures and layouts, so as not to grossly break consistency with player-added tiles that reused texture bits but set up new files for them, but that's about it.

That said, $$$ is a perfectly legitimate reason not to do something. Companies need $$$, because they have people they need to feed with that $$$ (even, or especially, the ones that aren't 100% "evil-aligned"). And yes, the sheer amount of models that'd need to be reworked is staggering. I'd suggest contracting community members to do it at a massive "hobbyist discount", but, y'know, not working with professionals doesn't usually get you professional conduct and emotional detachment; more potential for trouble down the road, especially since hobbyists tend to be hapless about the licensing terms of the tools and assets we use. Plus, the playerbase would probably skin Beamdog alive for "being cheap" if what the lot of us would deliver wasn't uTtErLy fLaWlEsS.

I'd also quietly like to add that NWN's blocky old graphics are a big help for giving newbies the courage to try messing with them. I'd be somewhat sad about upgrading NWN to modern-day professional standards, just because it'd mean losing a 3d modeling "nursery room" of the world. I've benefited from it, and it'd make me very happy if others would have that opportunity in the future.

And, no, seriously. When making public statements in a professional capacity, you watch what you say. Don't take these kinds of things for 100% uninhibited; if they are, the person talking should not be publicly representing anything. It'd be foolish of them to signal that there might ever be a graphics upgrade. Get people hyped for something you may not be able to deliver? Outrage. Do not get people hyped for something you may not be able to deliver? Good call.

Ancarion

TheBarbarian said:

I'd also quietly like to add that NWN's blocky old graphics are a big help for giving newbies the courage to try messing with them. I'd be somewhat sad about upgrading NWN to modern-day professional standards, just because it'd mean losing a 3d modeling "nursery room" of the world. I've benefited from it, and it'd make me very happy if others would have that opportunity in the future.

This is a very good point, and one that shouldn't be overlooked. The ability to create new models, tilesets, etc. and easily add them to the game is a huge part of NWN's appeal. It shouldn't be stifled by changing the fundamental systems to be overly complex, or by using third-party programs like Granny or their ilk. NWN has always been a gateway for many to learn modeling and texturing skills, and while I do obviously agree that the game can look better, I don't want to see those people locked out because of it.

Dark_Ansem

Ancarion said:

TheBarbarian said:

I'd also quietly like to add that NWN's blocky old graphics are a big help for giving newbies the courage to try messing with them. I'd be somewhat sad about upgrading NWN to modern-day professional standards, just because it'd mean losing a 3d modeling "nursery room" of the world. I've benefited from it, and it'd make me very happy if others would have that opportunity in the future.

This is a very good point, and one that shouldn't be overlooked. The ability to create new models, tilesets, etc. and easily add them to the game is a huge part of NWN's appeal. It shouldn't be stifled by changing the fundamental systems to be overly complex, or by using third-party programs like Granny or their ilk. NWN has always been a gateway for many to learn modeling and texturing skills, and while I do obviously agree that the game can look better, I don't want to see those people locked out because of it.

I found adding new models immensely difficult.

fkirenicus

BelleSorciere said:

Uh huh. I'm sure they totally meant what you wrote and not what they actually said.

I must admit I fail to see how updating e.g. an ogre model can break things - so long as the same resource names and file structures are kept.
I had # x community models in my override folder in my NWN "heyday", and they never broke anything - not the OC, not SoU, not HotU, or any other mod for that matter.

BelleSorciere

fkirenicus said:

BelleSorciere said:

Uh huh. I'm sure they totally meant what you wrote and not what they actually said.

I must admit I fail to see how updating e.g. an ogre model can break things - so long as the same resource names and file structures are kept.
I had # x community models in my override folder in my NWN "heyday", and they never broke anything - not the OC, not SoU, not HotU, or any other mod for that matter.

IDK, ask Trent.

scriver

I remember how in the first livestream Trent pretty clearly worded it in a way that said " we don't want to break things for mods that have the aesthetics down juuuuust the way they want them".

Paraphrasing here, of course.

Mordaedil

In game design terms, something can be considered broken if the increase in polycount and multiple models cause a crash of the client due to the increased complexity of the model.

This is something they usually handle through extensive testing and have certain constraints on what is considered acceptable.

I mean, you can just ask Thri-Kreen why he hates the guts of horses and trees, one of which I am pretty sure is a pure polygon problem.

Of course the problem with updating, say skeleton models is that it'd break the really cool skeleton model mod I use and that you shouldn't be playing NWN without. Ogre is just a bad example, because I don't think anyone made a "better ogre models" mod, but there you go.

fkirenicus

Mordaedil said:

Of course the problem with updating, say skeleton models is that it'd break the really cool skeleton model mod I use and that you shouldn't be playing NWN without. Ogre is just a bad example, because I don't think anyone made a "better ogre models" mod, but there you go.

Maybe. This one never caused any problems for me, at any rate (admittedly I've never tested it in neither EE nor DE - only the original disc versions).
Though in retrospect I realize it was far closer to the 3.5 version than the 3.0.
https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/hakpak/original-hakpak/ogre-override

Mordaedil

Hah, so there is one. It's a pretty good example though, that'd be broken if NWNEE overwrote ogres

Sylvus_Moonbow

Mordaedil said:

Hah, so there is one. It's a pretty good example though, that'd be broken if NWNEE overwrote ogres

No it would not be broken because it is a hak that overwrites Ogres.

If the hak is used from that link it overwrites stock NWN Ogres. That is how haks work. Beamdog can change the Bioware Ogre and make it purple with a white hat. The hak will still overwrite that and work as designed.

If you like your Ogre to be purple with a white hat you do not use the hak.