Darcy Pajak: We learned a lot from Hordes. First of all, we learned that the NWN toolset is very powerful, but places a couple limitations on the creative process for our designers. Despite the fact we have hundreds of possibilities for area and level design, our designers are limited by using a tile-based system. It is costly to create a unique room or area for the designers. In the future, we will not create generic tiles for the designers, but plan out levels, and build them in detail.

The second thing we learned was that adding dramatic moments in the game using the game engine and designer-directed movement adds a lot to the atmosphere and gives the designers an additional tool to create top-notch stories. These cutscenes were retrofitted into the game engine, and caused some major headaches for us and the testing team during development, but in the end, they were worth it. In the future, we will continue to use these to bring people into the adventure.

The third thing we learned was that the best stories from both our designers and the community are based around one person, and not an entire party. While playing RPGs with your friends is second to none for great fun, people need a story to revolve around them when they are playing it by themselves. It's also much harder to create an in-depth story when a bunch of people are in the game and you have to be conscious of the different styles of play. Everyone should be the hero, but it's difficult to create an effective story for parties of varying sizes and personalities. In the future, we will be sure to tailor the depth of story to the audience we intend for the product, as we did with the Hordes of the Underdark expansion.​