Interview Feargus talks to IGN about Mask of the Betrayer

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Feargus Urquhart; Neverwinter Nights 2; Obsidian Entertainment

<a href=http://www.ign.com>IGN</a> has posted a NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer <a href=http://au.pc.ign.com/articles/801/801641p1.html>interview</a> with Obsidian's Feargus Urquhart himself:
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<blockquote>What new races will be in the game?
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We've added six new races to the game: the wild elf, half-drow and all four of the elementally bound genasi. These six were among those most frequently requested by the community. The genasi have come out especially well from an artistic perspective, with very unique and cool appearances and hair styles.</blockquote>If the Japanese have taught us anything, it's that one shouldn't underestimate the importance of cool hair styles in an RPG.
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[denizsi]

Indeed.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Did that bear go to a Grateful Dead concert or something? Quite psychedelic.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

Aren't their enough freakin races in DnD?

 

[obediah]

Aren't their enough freakin races in DnD?

I think there are still a few attribute bonus/penalty combinations that still don't have a lame ass paragraph of back story.

 

[Brother None]

Cool hairstyles? SLAM DUNK!

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

You can't let the story overshadow the gameplay or the fun of killing monsters won't be there.

Why?

You can't let action win out over tactics, because the party based nature of D&D can get lost.

Then make it TB!

And, you won't just be meeting them in the physical world but in other planes as well.

Planewalking? Sounds good, don't ruin the idea.

We did address this issue some for the official campaign in Mask of the Betrayer by revisiting how we handle loot and crafting - you'll have less inventory clutter and more interesting items.

The amount of phat lewt in NWN 2 OC didn't make much sense.

We've also added many new items of D&D artifact quality.

Many? They're supposed to be rare.

A core mechanic of the Mask of the Betrayer deals with the player's interaction with the spirit world and we've added a whole new system for it.

Interesting.

You can bend thousands of tormented souls to your will, forcing them to serve you.

Am I the only one having a deja vu?

we have spent time on not only making the game look better, but making it run better as well.

Finally!

 

[Monolith]

You can't let the story overshadow the gameplay or the fun of killing monsters won't be there.

Fun of killing monsters? Some people should play their own games.

 

[thesheeep]

we have spent time on not only making the game look better, but making it run better as well.

Finally!

Damn good to hear that.
I've got a freakin expensive PC here and NWN2 runs like shit....

EDIT: With runs like shit I mean that it goes into slow-motion/lag like once in a minute... I haven't paid that much for the PC just to see something like that

 

[Elwro]

You missed the important part:

IGN: In NWN2 you could quest for a giant spider and subsequently invite him into your stronghold - what kinds of quirky quests will be in Mask of the Betrayer?

Feargus Urquhart: You can bend thousands of tormented souls to your will, forcing them to serve you

Come on, maybe it's not nations, but they're certainly trying!

 

[Shannow]

we have spent time on not only making the game look better, but making it run better as well.

Finally!

Damn good to hear that.
I've got a freakin expensive PC here and NWN2 runs like shit....

EDIT: With runs like shit I mean that it goes into slow-motion/lag like once in a minute... I haven't paid that much for the PC just to see something like that

Hmm, it ran fine on my system. Did you buy the game? Have they finally included international versions?
I want to buy the game when the expansion pack comes out, but they can forget that if I can only get it with "Deutsche Sprachausgabe".

And they could really scrap the fat loot and focus more on challenging and tactical combat.

 

[Starwars]

I'm looking forward to this for some reason.

Didn't they say in some other interview though that many people had found the combat of NWN2 to hard? That doesn't exactly bode well for the combat in the expansion, since the only difficulty in most of the NWN2 combat was controlling the henchman AI if you ask me.

Still, maybe this time around they have had the time to focus on a tighter and better campaign. I liked some parts of NWN2, but it went up and down in quality to much. Almost all of Act 1 is boring as hell (to the point of me almost uninstalling the game where you need to clear out the orc caves), but it gets decent after that I think.
I want Obsidian to succeed damnit.

More paths would be nice, and more consequences. NWN2 had quite a lot of skill checks and stuff in dialogues, hopefully that part will have more weight this time around. Some roleplaying pieces were enjoyable (the trial) I thought, but it fails since there are no real consequences for it (if you fail) that I'm aware of.
While the plot is about as cliche as you can get, some of the dialogues are well-written and very enjoyable.
Hopefully they'll avoid stupid design decisions such as the bard 'minigame' contest, and hopefully they'll make the influence system not completely sucky.

 

[Greatatlantic]

Speaking of NWN2, anybody know what the "good" mods for it are so far? Preferably one with less emphasis on combat.

 

[Volourn]

NWN2 OC as fun. Ovrrated by non Codexers; but fun nontheless.

Disspaointed about the chosens ubrace s- there should be some dwarven ones like Artic, and Jungle Dwarves.

BOOOOOOOO!

 

[jiujitsu]

Well, at least Half-Drow sounds pretty good. Then you can roleplay as the Black Raven which is one of the cooler stories I read about in IWD2.

I really love IWD2. The story surrounding the Holy Avenger is my favorite. I wish I could play right now.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

You can jiu....if you believe.

 

[aries202]

As I understand it, Obsidian really has listened to the community, and is in fact including the thing the community wants in the game. So, now, when a developer does that, it is sort of wrong, too :

 

[thesheeep]

Hmm, it ran fine on my system. Did you buy the game? Have they finally included international versions?
I want to buy the game when the expansion pack comes out, but they can forget that if I can only get it with "Deutsche Sprachausgabe".

Yes, I bought the German version (but thats not important, since it is multilanguage anyway..). Maybe that's what you meant with "international version".
With all latest patches it runs fine on my PC, too. But it could be better, since the graphics in NWN2 are not THAT overwhelming... and the maps are small.

I guess the expansion pack will also be a multlanguage one.

 

[elander_]

As I understand it, Obsidian really has listened to the community, and is in fact including the thing the community wants in the game. So, now, when a developer does that, it is sort of wrong, too :

No. Their community deserves it. What about half-gay-drow and elemental lesbians?

 

[Volourn]

"As I understand it, Obsidian really has listened to the community, and is in fact including the thing the community wants in the game. So, now, when a developer does that, it is sort of wrong, too"

They listen to the community hwen it's convinet for them - just like any other company.

 

[Texas Red]

Compare this expansion to SoU or HotU of NWN 1. From features we not only get new prestige classes but also a new base class and races. Also I have reason to believe that the campaign wont be a Diablo wannabee. We have new companions and their influence, new moral choises etc.

Obsidian wins. Bioware loses. Except if Bioware would be doing this everyone and their grandma would be covering it. It really frustrates me.

 

[NiM82]

I've not played NWN2 since it came out - can anyone enlighten me as to whether they have improved the party control aspect?

It really pissed me off that you couldn't tell your party to wait in a separate zone. It made stealth missions a joke - I remember breaking into a house (for a quest) and sneaking through guarded rooms with my rogue, then, as soon as I got the second floor my party spawned in. Fucking stupid, BG had this stuff sorted to a tee years ago, heck it even had enemies that would chase you between zones :/

If it hasn't been fixed in patches, I really hope the exp sorts it - NWN2 was quite a nice game, such stupid niggles aside. More NPC choice (particularly evil) would also be a bonus.

 

[aboyd]

More paths would be nice, and more consequences. NWN2 had quite a lot of skill checks and stuff in dialogues, hopefully that part will have more weight this time around.

In an earlier interview, a developer said that MotB is more hack & slash, less dialogue-driven.

While the plot is about as cliche as you can get, some of the dialogues are well-written and very enjoyable.

Actually, the plot felt fairly original to me. I didn't feel like the whole sword of the Gith plot == save teh world plot. Instead, I felt that it was more exploratory, like TNO in Torment -- you were trying to evolve your own character, not the fate of nations (ha ha). Because of that, I didn't feel like I had seen it a hundred times before.

 

[aboyd]

I've not played NWN2 since it came out - can anyone enlighten me as to whether they have improved the party control aspect?

It really pissed me off that you couldn't tell your party to wait in a separate zone.

They have indeed improved party control in the patches. The big thing is that combat modes now stick on a per-character basis. There are other positive changes, too. However, having your party wait in another zone is not possible, as far as I know. In addition, I've not seen the developers discussing such a feature in any of the topics about the 1.07 patch. So I don't think you should expect to see it.

I suppose you could always fake it by returning to your stronghold and selecting no one when the party configuration box appears. Then you'd be completely on your own, assuming that none of the NPCs were mandatory at that point in the game.

 

[NiM82]

Bah, problem with leaving npc's at base is when you need their skillset. I was playing as a fighter, thus needed Neeshka to do the stealth stuff - meaning my character had to tag along when she broke into places anyway.

The combat improvement sound's great, I will have to check it out again sometime. Thank's for the heads-up.