NWN2 patch information

[stoffe]

I think it's just Neeshka... which is a little annoying for those who want to play as tieflings. I suppose you'd have to edit the save data with NWN2-GFF to add one in.

 

Works fine to use nwn2gff, I've created some characters with nonstandard appearances and wings and tails with it and it has worked fine (so far) in-game. But it would be easier if you could do it in-game when creating the character like you could in NWN1.

 

My current (rather pink) Tiefling warlock character with a pair of wings:

[Pavlos]

Source

 

We have a so-called "premonition" (but not the actual thing) of what's coming for 1.07 and the future of NWN2.

 

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Premonition (Version 1.07) Beta Patch Notes

August 28th, 2007

 

Developer Note

 

Hi Everyone!

 

There’s a word I’d like you all to keep in mind – by the end of this note, you’ll understand why. That word is Premonition.

 

We here at Obsidian have been working on Neverwinter Nights 2 for just over three years now. The biggest milestone in our three years working on Neverwinter Nights 2 was last October’s launch of the game. It was great to get the product out to people, so they could see the campaign we’d developed and check out what the new engine and toolset were capable of.

 

As with any undertaking of the scope of NWN2, there have been many challenges – but we’ve always dedicated ourselves to resolving them, pressing ahead and looking forward to the potential of what we felt a great sequel to Neverwinter Nights should be. As exciting and rewarding as it was to release the game, and as proud as we are of it, we certainly understood and in many cases agreed with some of the complaints. Even at launch, we wanted to improve the game in several ways. And so we pressed ahead, always driven to achieve that potential – driven by the vision of what both we and the community could make of Neverwinter Nights 2.

 

Update 1.03 saw massive performance improvements, and now Update 1.07 will include a second set of performance optimizations. We’ve worked with the community to improve some of the walkmesh and AI issues with the game, and our dedication to supporting our scriptable, customizable graphical user interface (GUI) has paid off with the community developing UI modifications that allow people to customize the game’s UI to their liking. The DM client you’re getting with this patch is a full featured tool for running multiplayer games.

 

Additionally, we knew when we released the game that while the Neverwinter Nights 2 toolset was much more flexible and powerful than the original game’s, it would have a steeper learning curve. Additionally, some of us were worried about whether the community would step up to the plate with the new functionality we’d given them. For instance, we knew the UI scripting we introduced was powerful – but would people take advantage of it?

I’m pleased to say that, while there certainly has been a bit of a learning curve while the community has been mastering the new engine, new toolset and new functionality we’ve provided, looking back at the past year I can point to lots of fantastic things that the community has generated – many of which were impossible in the old game. For examples, check out our NWN2 Blog, where each week we highlight some of the cool things the community has made. But, here’s a short list of examples of cool community creations within the last year:

• The NWN2 DMFI, with its strong integration into the user interface and its own custom GUI.
  
• All of the cool community generated stuff up on NWVault, including the custom Modules, prefab areas, custom GUIs, and much more.
  
• The extremely useful toolset plugins, which extend to the community the ability to generate the tools that they want or need.
  
• TonyK and evenflw’s AI improvements.
  
• All of the entrants into our Module contest.
  
• Several very cool, active persistent worlds.
  

 

All this – and people haven’t even had the new toolset and engine for a full year!

 

And so, we’re going to continue looking forward. This October, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer will ship, a little bit shy of NWN2’s first birthday. And, in anticipation of Mask, we’re delivering the largest, most feature rich update to NWN2 yet.

 

Remember when I mentioned Premonition earlier? A premonition is a sense of the future; an anticipation of what is to come. In many ways, Mask was designed to anticipate the things that you guys would like to see improved in Neverwinter 2 – better performance and new creatures, area textures, placeables, races and classes and more.

 

We here at Obsidian are very excited to get Mask to all of you. And, we’re excited to see what the community will do with the new stuff we’ve provided. This update contains many of the core game changes that we’ve made during the development of Mask of the Betrayer. It even contains a sneak peak at one of Mask’s new creatures. We felt that this update was big enough to warrant its own title – and so we decided on Premonition, as this Update gives you, the community, a chance to anticipate some of what you all are going to see when you pick up Mask.

 

Premonition is a fitting title for another reason, too. This update is a preview of our future plans to continue to improve the level of support and dedication we’ve given to the game - to continue to look forward and make Neverwinter Nights 2 the ultimate computer D&D role-playing experience.

 

From all of us here at Obsidian, we hope you enjoy Premonition and Mask of the Betrayer. And, as always, we’re looking forward to seeing the awesome and creative content you guys develop with the new tools we’ve provided.

 

Thanks,

 

Nathaniel Chapman

Assistant Producer

Obsidian Entertainment, Inc.

 

 

NEW FEATURES IN PREMONITION

 

General

 

Character Mode and Strategy Mode – In advance of the release of the Mask of the Betrayer expansion pack this September, we’ve included one of the major new revisions we’ve made to the camera and control modes. Now, the four camera modes (Top Down, Chase, Driving and Free Camera) have been consolidated into two modes that are more configurable and clearer to use than the old modes – Character Mode and Strategy Mode.

 

These modes affect both the function of the camera and the controls for each mode, and are designed to be most efficient for the two primary styles of play – controlling a single character, and controlling a full party. Note that while the information given here refers to the default function of each mode, these modes are highly configurable. Please check out all of the options in the newly updated Options Menu. You can toggle which mode you are in by pressing the * key by default.

 

• Character Mode: In Character Mode, the camera follows behind and over the shoulder of the currently controlled character. This mode is useful for getting a good look at your surroundings and exploring an area while focused on controlling an individual character. While in Character Mode, by default, holding the Left Mouse Button down and moving the mouse to the left or right will turn the character. You can also turn by moving the mouse to the edge of the screen. Holding down the Middle Mouse Button or pressing the Arrow keys will allow you to rotate the camera around the currently controlled character.
  
• Strategy Mode: Strategy Mode is a top down Play Mode that is intended to make controlling a full party easier. This mode is most useful for controlling combat situations involving a full party of characters against a large number of enemies. In Strategy Mode, by default, you can click and drag to select multiple party members. You can rotate the camera either by holding the Middle Mouse Button and moving the mouse, by moving the mouse cursor to the edge of the screen, or by pressing the Arrow Keys.
  
• New Options Menu – Patch 1.07 also introduces a new options menu that gives you access to consolidated and clear options for each camera mode, and better organization of the already existing options.
  
• Marquee/Multi-Selection Revamp – Marquee and Multi-selection have been dramatically improved to make controlling a full party much easier. You can see the new improvements to Marquee and Multi-selection in the new Strategy Mode.
   
  

UI Improvements

 

• Party AI On/Off Button – There is now a button on the main game UI, next to the rest button, that will toggle the entire party’s AI on or off.
  
• Player Chat List – A list of all players on the server is now available on the Player Menu (the NWN2 “Eye” button in the lower left corner of the screen). You can select any player from this list to send them a tell.
  
• 
  
• "Handles" have been added to the chat windows to allow them to be moved more easily.
  
• A logcommands console command has been added that allows you to dump all of the console commands to a text file.
  
• Console commands are no longer case sensitive.
  

 

Gameplay Improvements

 

• Darkvision and Low-light Vision are now modes that can be toggled on or off using the Mode Bar. They also have new visual effects to accompany this change.
  
• Bronze Dragon - New Creature! The Bronze Dragon creature has been added to the Toolset, so expect him to show up in new community content as well as Mask of the Betrayer.
  
• Stealth Improvements – Some improvements have been made to stealth to make it more effective in a Multiplayer environment. Among these, characters who are hidden will no longer show up when detected by any party member, and hidden characters should be hidden properly regardless of faction.
  

 

Toolset

• A "Find a Resource" Plugin has been added to the toolset.
  
• A Creature Appearance Wizard has been added. This will allow you to change the appearance of spawned creatures and creature blueprints, including race, gender, armor and armor attachments. This feature can be accessed by right clicking on a creature or blueprint entry. NOTE: This feature is currently in Beta, and there are plans to improve its functionality.
  
• A Texture Swapper has been added that allows builders to swap the textures in a tileset. This feature can be accessed from a tile’s properties pane, visible by right clicking on a tile.
  
• A new custom skydome system has been added to the toolset, allowing users to replace the NWN2 skies with skydomes of their own creating.
  
• Areas now have additional settings under their Day/Night Stage Properties that allow builders to “de-saturate” an area – that is, remove a percentage of the color from an area, all the way to black and white.
  

 

DM Client

• A UI feature has been added to allow DMs to adjust player/creature alignments using a slider bar.
  
• Comments from the toolset (comments within the {} brackets) will now show up in the Creator.
  
• The distance a DM can zoom out has been greatly increased.
  
• A filter feature has been added to the DM Client player list. This will allow DMs to select specific players and filter their list down to only show those selected players.
  

 

 

BUG FIXES IN PREMONITION

 

General

• The PC model during level up should be scaled to match the scaling in game
  
• Module Debug text should now display properly.
  
• The Dwarven Defender Defensive Stance ability now functions properly.
  
• The game will no longer crash if a player presses the + key on the number pad in a multiplayer game.
  
• Fixed an issue that was resulting in corrupted save games.
  
• Typing // will now make it so that the rest of the string is not treated as a command input, allowing the character to speak the rest of the string without any changes.
  
• Character AI should now respond to all attacks, not just attacks that result in damage.
  
• Fixed an exploit that allowed players to increase their CON.
  
• Neutral players should now be able to select Akadi as a deity.
  
• The Improved Defense feats should now replace each other.
  
• Mouse camera panning and tilting are now options in the game.
  

 

Toolset

• The 2DA editor in toolset should now handle rows where the row # is 4 digits.
  
• When viewing a 2DA in the toolset, sorting by any column other than the # will no longer renumber all the entries when saving.
  
• Changing a placeable's OpenState property will no longer yield an Unknown.
  
• Swapping textures in the toolset should no longer result in solid black textures.
  
• Opening the toolset after having set the TreeLeaves option to false in the View -> Options -> Graphics menu should result in leaves not being rendered.
  
• Builders can now select male or female model previews on the Armor Tab in the creature properties window.
  
• Manually entering a value in the Pressure's text field should now affect brushes.
  
• When you run the toolset a prefabs folder should be created, which becomes the default location for saving Prefab objects. Exported Prefabs will not get added to the blueprint list until the Toolset is restarted.
  
• Ctrl-Z will no longer set height-lock in the toolset. The Z key is used now.
  
• Turning the On? property of a light OFF and ON will toggle the light source OFF and ON.
  
• Pasting encounter triggers with spawn points no longer crashes the Toolset.
  
• All the effects associated with an air elemental are played in the proper place.
  
• The name of the last conversation will no longer be missing from the conversation dropdown in the properties list.
  
• Adding a new entry in the journal, when another entry is currently selected, will add the new entry to the parent category of the selected entry.
  
• Red conversation nodes now show "[END DIALOG]" if they have no response nodes under them.
  
• The DELETE key will now work properly when manually entering color values
  
• Glow maps stay on the creatures for which they are intended.
  
• Map hotspots will now appear in the same position in-game as they do in the World Map Editor.
  

 

DM Client

• On the DM's Context menu, if you are controlling the DM avatar the non-DM heal skill will not show up. If you possess another creature, the non-DM heal skill will show up.
  
• DM commands listed in the Keymapping tab will now function properly.
  
• Dead players will no longer disappear from the chooser.
  
• Possessing/Unpossessing Creatures will no longer play the creature's possession sound.
  
• Players will no longer see the floating text from DMs unless the DM is visible.
  
• Changing the resolution in the DM client should no longer cause the text to disappear from the chooser and creator.
  
• DMs can change the faction of a creature using the dm_setfaction command.
  
• Players will no longer hear the footsteps of hidden DMs.
  
• The disable AI button in the chooser will now work properly.
  
• DebugMode will no longer need to be active for a DM to use console commands.
  
• The last entries in the Chooser or Creator lists will no longer be blank.
  
• The chooser will now focus on the current area when opened.
  
• DMs can now select dead PCs from within the chooser.
  
• The Chooser and Creator will no longer require double-clicks on the buttons.
  
• The + key on the number pad will now jump the DM to the location of the mouse pointer.
  
• The toggle trap/trigger display button will now work properly.
  
• DMs will now be able to join a server that is full, even if that puts the player count over the limit. DMs will still count against the overall player count.
  
• When a DM saves his avatar, the custom shortcuts in the quickbar should no longer become unuseable at next login.
  
• Player portraits in the player list will no longer be blank if a player is in a different area.
  
• Player portraits in the player list will now have the correct portraits and names.
  

 

Scripting

• EffectDeath() now has a new parameter that will make it so that any visual effects on the creature aren't purged (With the exception of mobility imparing effects, like stun, paralysis, etc).
  
• The "GetGroupNumKiled" script within ginc_group has been renamed to "GetGroupNumKilled".
  

 

Spells

• Melf's Acid Arrow will no longer be stopped by spell resistance.
  
• The combat log will now report Disintegrate as a ranged touch attack when cast.
  
• Disintegrate will now gain bonus damage when Empowered.
  
• The targeting circle for Horrid Wilting has been changed to 30 feet.
  
• Fixed a spelling error for the Glyph of Warding spell description.
  

 

It does look something of a mammoth - multiplayer seems to have gotten a lot of attention... but then that aspect of the game was apparently gimped so hopefully that should fix a lot of complaints. Kudos to Obsidian, I say... though I wonder how many bugs this one will introduce . But this whole confession of mistakes they made throughout the hyping of MotB and now for patch notes is heartening - for me, at least.

 

In other news: I like the "Character Mode" camera. Sounds like a much more flexible version of KotOR's already terrific camera . And "woo!" we have a Creature Appearance plugin for the toolset (finally).

 

Edit: And hurrah for more performance improvements - hopefully I'll be able to turn on shadows now...

[ChAiNz.2da]

Agreed. This new Expansion/Update may just redeem NWN2 in my eyes I really hope so because the NWN series was so much of my gaming life I feel like I've been "separated" from a loved one

 

Here's to hoping

[stoffe]

It does look something of a mammoth - multiplayer seems to have gotten a lot of attention... but then that aspect of the game was apparently gimped so hopefully that should fix a lot of complaints.

 

Nice, hopefully they'll continue to improve the game as there still seems to be plenty left to do.

 

I didn't see anything in that release note about fixing the Spell Resistance bug, about fixing the toolset from crashing when using a color picker in a template after having used "Save as file" to save a template, or fixing the bug in the 2DA editor (introduced with 1.06) that causes it to corrupt some 2DA files which contains long entries since it doesn't pad the columns properly with whitespaces (causing some values to appear right next to the value of the preceeding column with no whitespace in between).

[Jae Onasi]

I'm looking forward to this update, too. Any improvement in spells, AI, and general playability is welcome. Some of the community members have made spell fixes that have really helped fix things. Of course, some of the spells that were overdoing it were now fixed back to what they really are supposed to do, like cone of cold, hehe. I'll see if I can find that mod and post it here.

[Pavlos]

1.07 BETA (Premonition [how fancy...]) has been released. Same feature list as above. I'm going to risk the beta and take a look at the engine optimisations, the camera changes, and the toolset.

 

Un link

 

Edit:

 

2da Changes:

 

actions.2da

ambientmusic.2da

appearance.2da

baseitems.2da

classes.2da

cls_feat_wm.2da

color_wildelf.2da

crafting.2da

des_crft_scroll.2da

des_crft_spells.2da

domains.2da

feat.2da

hen_familiar.2da

iprp_damagereduction.2da

iprp_weightinc.2da

itempropdef.2da

itemtypes.2da

keymap.2da

metamagic.2da

metatiles.2da

nwn2_dmcommands.2da

nwn2_emotes.2da

nwn2_scriptsets.2da

nwn2_voicemenu.2da

placeableobjsnds.2da

skills.2da

spells.2da

tailmodel.2da

 

Known Issues:

 

1. In item properties, some properties will have strange text for bonuses rather than numbers. When you select the text, it will place the appropriate number (such as +9) in the field.

 

2. Changing the color of some armors using the armor set tab will result in the color reverting back to the original or last color, or it will be saved as black.

 

Please list any problems you have with the patch in this thread here. [Pavlos: The thread over on BioWare, obviously not here .]

 

(thought that last should be more obvious, CD.)

[stoffe]

1.07 BETA (Premonition [how fancy...]) has been released. Same feature list as above. I'm going to risk the beta and take a look at the engine optimisations, the camera changes, and the toolset.

 

Un link

 

Hmm, I'm a bit ambivalent about this patch... lots of good improvements, but they also seem to mess quite a lot with things that weren't really broken, like the cameras/controls/options. Seems like they've applied a planet-sized nerf to the Knockdown feat as well, making it mostly worthless. It will also be annoying if they've added an Oblivion-Nighteye like effect to Darkvision (which it sounds like from the readme) since it ruins the visuals of the game if you just see the world in black and white during the night or while indoors. In particular since I can't remember any really dark area in the game.

 

Hopefully all the changes aren't hardcoded so you can change them back to what you are accustomed to while still getting the performance enhancements.

[Pavlos]

No, knockdown was broken, apparently (I have no idea where to start on DnD rules ).

 

Umm... the camera is... new. I'm not sure what more I can say - it took a while to get used to but I got the strategy mode to work as I wanted to and then managed to get the character mode to work nicely too. The camera rotation is finally no longer limited by your framerate, or so it would seem because when I swing it around, it maintains the same speed. So: the camera is actually an improvement but it sort of takes some getting used to (like the first time I played NWN2) and it will hopefully settle some of the "the camera is broken!!!!111!!!" people down . Oh and my first thoughts when looking at the camera screen were, "Oh my lord, buttons! Thousands of buttons!" My second thought was, "The marquee control can now be tied to a drag click? Hurrah!"

 

The... game seemed to mysteriously forget my graphics settings but no big deal. There are some nice improvements - such as the addition of a "far shadows" check-box - but, the graphics screen just seems to be a rearrangement and rewording of things. I didn't get much of a performance increase (but that may be something to do with my very, very old AMD Althlon 64 3000+... or was in 3200+? One of those, anyway). One thing I did notice, though, is that there seems to be less fluctuation in frame rate and as such conversation animations are a little more fluent . Others are reporting rather large increases in fps but this is the internet, the realm of exaggeration, so it's probably best to take them with a grain of salt.

 

I'm not sure if it's psychological but I think module and area load times have been decreased, it would be nice if someone could verify this for me.

 

On the toolset side: load times seem pretty much the same, but we now have a plugin to search through the game's resources and the interior tilesets no longer have a red ceiling (hurrah!). I've never had problems with the toolset crashing so I'm not really in any position to comment on that. Same with multiplayer.

 

Low light vision doesn't actually seem to work ... so no fears there, stoffe.

 

Edit: Oh and a little yellow message comes up across the top of the screen when you get a new journal entry in the cinematic conversation mode - which is nice. I'm not sure if it does the same with influence (like it did in the MotB preview) but I'd imagine that it does. You can also view the numerical values for your alignment, which is a nice touch .

[Jae Onasi]

Usually I'm not too excited about trying a beta patch, but I might just give this one a shot since the improvements seem to be worth the risk.

[stoffe]

No, knockdown was broken, apparently (I have no idea where to start on DnD rules ).

 

Knockdown was a Bioware invention for NWN1, that feat does not exist in D&D. So they could make it work like they want. Now they've seemingly decided to make it worthless. Hopefully at least the cooldown can be removed in feat.2da. That should hopefully still make it fairly useful as a spellcaster disruption tool for fighters.

 

Umm... the camera is... new. I'm not sure what more I can say - it took a while to get used to but I got the strategy mode to work as I wanted to and then managed to get the character mode to work nicely too.

 

Is it possible to configure it to work just like Top-down mode does? I prefer being able to swing the camera around, zoom in and out, pan tilt the camera as I wish etc.

 

it will hopefully settle some of the "the camera is broken!!!!111!!!" people down . Oh and my first thoughts when looking at the camera screen were,

 

the camera might be broken!!!!111!!!

 

The... game seemed to mysteriously forget my graphics settings but no big deal.

 

Every time you start it, or just the first time after the patch has been applied?

 

There are some nice improvements - such as the addition of a "far shadows" check-box - but, the graphics screen just seems to be a rearrangement and rewording of things.

 

I hope you can still turn off he same things through... without minimal shadows and point light shadows, soft shadows and reflective water off the game becomes unplayable on my computer.

 

Others are reporting rather large increases in fps but this is the internet, the realm of exaggeration, so it's probably best to take them with a grain of salt.

 

Might depend on hardware, but I wouldn't be surprised if much of it is placebo. If people are being told there are performance increases they often see what they've been told they should see to some extent.

 

Low light vision doesn't actually seem to work ... so no fears there, stoffe.

 

Nothing happens if you toggle it? Weird. Darkvision was pretty bugged before already (you had to switch control to another party member and then back to your PC after an area transition to turn it on), but at least it worked reasonably OK. I liked that it just slightly increased the light level of the area without any fancy (aka: annoying in the long run) visual effects like the Nightvision in Oblivion.

 

Edit: Oh and a little yellow message comes up across the top of the screen when you get a new journal entry in the cinematic conversation mode - which is nice.

 

That's nice, it was always a bit annoying that you couldn't see what effects your choices in a dialog had until after the dialog was done.

[Pavlos]

Ok... more stuff:

 

The camera is much more flexible to tweak and as such, a new player may be overwhelmed by all the buttons but I can safely say that it is a big improvement, for me, at least. After eight months of patching, I can actually get the game to play like Baldur's Gate II. Shift+click on a party member's portrait adds them to your currently controlled characters, the marquee works with a click and drag - as it should have done from the off - the issues with the group select and character actions seem to have been fixed, so you don't have to deselect your party members and just control the PC to interact with objects. The character mode isn't annoying, either... it actually works and I have it set up so when I switch to that mode the game plays almost exactly like KotOR.

 

I was also a little harsh on the performance improvements. I've extended my tests to the other areas of the OC (rather than just West Harbor) and I've seen an improvement of 5-10 fps (which is substantial on my ageing system). As I said before, there's less fluctuation in this as well, so swinging the camera about and panning isn't painful for the eyes.

 

What's more: New items flash in the inventory, to tell you that you've just picked them up - which is more useful than you can possibly believe.

 

So: some bugs, some flaws but I'm really impressed with 1.07 thus far .

[Balderdash]

Usually I'm not too excited about trying a beta patch, but I might just give this one a shot since the improvements seem to be worth the risk.

There's no risk, really. You can revert back to 1.06 easily enough, I believe.

 

I'd try it out myself but I'm too lazy... I am looking forward to using the new camera modes though, and performance updates are always welcome...

[tk102]

NWVault has posted that Obsidian released a patch to "v1.10 final" yesterday.

 

http://nwvault.ign.com/#33385

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2Articles.Detail&id=230

 

I tried using the updater but it told me my v1.06.980 was the latest. :shrug: Maybe the updater hasn't been updated yet. I haven't manually downloaded the patch either so I haven't seen the readme. (Edit: there isn't one)

 

Edit: A bit more info found from this nwn2 forum thread:

http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=586736&forum=121

With the MoTB release imminent, we have been taking a look at the 1.07 patch and how it interacts with MoTB.

 

Many of you have seen already that we have been slowly bringing the code forks together now, so that the NWN2 patches are compatible with MoTB.

 

Patching the game is always a difficult process. When one thing is fixed, other things break. So, with that in mind we had to make a decision about how to handle the 1.07 patch with the MoTB release.

 

What we have decided is that, the 1.07 final patch will be "reversioned" to become 1.10. The 1.10 final patch will contain only data fixes from 1.07. It will not contain any programming fixes that are not already in 1.07. This means that some things, such as stealth, while they are fixed for us, may not be fixed in 1.10 for you. This is to make sure that when you have your copy of MoTB installed, the patch won't break it unnecessarily.

 

Now, for those of you that purchase and install MoTB, you should see all the fixes right away - including stealth - as they are "native" to that code. But for those of you that don't have MoTB, the fixes will be finalized in the patch after the MoTB release.

 

We apologize for any inconvenience, but feel this is the safest course of action for all players.

[Pavlos]

Should be good to go with the autopatcher now, guys. That is... for those of us that don't have MotB yet.

 

*Glares at stoffe in envy*

[tk102]

I had higher hopes for the toolkit's "Find a Resource" plugin. Sadly, it's no better than my Yahoo! Desktop Search. It doesn't even search within .mod files.

 

Oh how I wish there was tool that could help me Find References. LOL, I crack myself up.

 

[stoffe]

I had higher hopes for the toolkit's "Find a Resource" plugin. Sadly, it's no better than my Yahoo! Desktop Search. It doesn't even search within .mod files.

 

You don't have any plans of turning FindRefs into a Toolset plugin? I think that would be rather popular, given how poor the standard search features in the Toolset are.

[Pavlos]

Missed this one

 

So many of you have seen we have talked about the ability to use custom portraits instead of the default 3d portraits of NWN2. For those with MoTB installed, you can see that we have used this for the companions and other creatures.

 

Right now, there is no easy way to set the portraits for characters as you could during character creation in NWN1, so we started work on a system to allow this. But, after some discussions we felt that Persistent World Players needed something more. For those of you that don't play on PWs, it's important to understand that characters evolve on PWs, as well as the world around them. As such, we felt it would be great if you could actually change your portrait during play. So, once the feature is released in a patch you will be able to double-click on your portrait in the character screen and a portrait selection dialog (shown below) will appear. You will be able to change your portrait as often as you like and, as long as other players have your portrait in their portraits folder (My Documents\Neverwinter Nights 2\Portraits), they will be able to see the change as well. If you ever want to go back to your 3d game-generated portrait, just click the clear button.

 

Nifty, no? Kudos to Obsidian, I'm unlikely to use the system but the more freedom to customise our characters the better, no?

[Pavlos]

*Blows off dust*

 

Hmm... been a while but we finally have news of our next patch. Release will be on Monday 10th December; apparently they could release today but it's too near the weekend to offer immediate support.

 

Here is a quick look at some of the fixes and features in Patch 1.11. Happy reading.

 

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Version 1.11 Patch Notes

October 30th, 2007

 

 

Bug Fixes in 1.11

 

General

• Stealth was previously not functioning properly. It is now functioning as designed.
  
• Opening the Game Options window will no longer reset the camera focus of Strategy Mode.
  
• The Dwarven Defender’s Defensive Stance should now function properly.
  
• An exploit was fixed that allowed players to increase their CON by unequipping and re-equipping items.
  
• A message will now be displayed if a character cannot equip an item due to being Frightened.
  
• The “Enable Buy/Sell Confirmation” option will now properly retain its state when you exit the game.
  
• Duergar are now properly ECL +1 rather than ECL +2.
  

 

Mask of the Betrayer Fixes (WARNING: Spoilers)

• The Spirit Eater abilities Supress, Gorge and Ravenous Incarnation will no longer alter the PC's alignment.
  
• The Lobby Level-up conversation will no longer lock out other players from leveling up.
  
• Some animation issues with the Faceless Man have been addressed.
  
• Okku will now properly speak in several situations where he was not previously.
  
• Several of Okku’s animations have been fixed to prevent graphical glitches that were occurring.
  
• Okku’s Paw weapon will now always upgrade properly as he gains levels.
  
• Okku now gains Regeneration at the Devoted Influence level.
  
• Party members should now always be properly restored when returning from dream states.
  
• The Death Knight’s Abyssal Blast ability will now cause only one Reflex save.
  
• You can no longer use Provoke Spirit on the Priest in the Death God’s Vault – doing this would cause you to not be able to access the furnace.
  
• The dialogue between Magda and Gann in the Veil Theater will now only occur if Gann is in the party.
  
• The conversation with Shelvedar will no longer drop if the player is female.
  
• Animal Companions will no longer break events in the Ice Troll Lodge.
  
• Occasionally, Spirit Energy would not be properly deducted when travelling from Mulsantir to Ashenwood and vice-versa. This has been fixed.
  
• The Sealed Passage in the Middle Barrow is no longer referred to as sealed once it has been opened.
  
• The Silver Sword ability Infinite Resonance will now function properly.
  
• Casting 0-level spells onto the Silver Sword will now properly add charges.
  
• Safiya will now properly grant Improved Empower Spell at Loyal and Devoted levels of Influence.
  
• The player can no longer encounter a progression break when using Soul Housing No. 184 to free Ammon Jerro before completing the Conflicted quest.
  
• The Spirit Energy meter will no longer remain after defeating the Faceless Man.
  

 

Toolset

• Several crashes have been addressed in the Creature Appearance Wizard.
  

 

DM Client

• On the DM's Context menu, if you are controlling the DM avatar the non-DM heal skill will not show up. If you possess another creature, the non-DM heal skill will show up.
  

 

 

Scripting

• EffectDeath() now has a new parameter that will make it so that any visual effects on the creature aren't purged (With the exception of mobility imparing effects, like stun, paralysis, etc).
  

 

Spells

• Enervate will always display its visual effect properly and will now only roll one ranged touch attack.
  
• Lionheart can now be scribed to a scroll.
  
• Extract Water Elemental can now be scribed to a scroll.
  
• Many spells which previously were not able to be used to craft wands now work.
  

 

It seems they've fixed the Mask of the Betrayer basic spirit-eater powers so they don't alter alignment. Must have been because everyone disliked it . Good call on that, I'd say. Another good thing: the deduction of spirit points when travelling has been fixed.

 

Obsidian are pretty famous for not mentioning half of what's gone into the patch (not sure why they don't list it all...) so here's a link to the thread so you can read the responses to other people's questions... and question them yourself, too! Clicky.

[stoffe]

Obsidian are pretty famous for not mentioning half of what's gone into the patch (not sure why they don't list it all...) so here's a link to the thread so you can read the responses to other people's questions... and question them yourself, too! Clicky.

 

Nice. Still no mention of fixing the broken Spell Resistance on creature hides (unless I'm confused), though. I wonder how hard that could be since that bug has been there from the start and they don't even seem to acknowledge it exists.

 

At least there is a bunch of other things I've noticed that they have fixed (even though I've corrected many of them myself already )

[Pavlos]

What fun, another update have we.

 

Clearing the Air

 

We have been making some changes to the way we will be handling patches moving forward. While I can't give you full details yet, I will let you in on some of the changes: We will be working on a six week schedule for each patch, starting with 1.12. This is a tighter schedule and that means that the number of fixes and features included with each patch will be reduced when compared to the average patch in the past. This, however, does mean that you should be seeing patches more often and at a more predictable rate. We are setting our goals pretty high with this new plan. We will be attempting to address some pretty important, but very risky fixes and features as well.

 

As part of the new plan, I hope to make our patching process more transparent. I would like to tell you much earlier what we plan to work on in the patches and keep you much more up to date as to how the patches change as we go through each phase: from production, through testing and, finally, to release. I will start this process by posting our primary goals for each patch in this blog. These lists will not be complete lists of what we plan to address as we would still like to put a few surprises in and we will still be keeping exploits a secret so as not to make PW Admins' lives more difficult. The lists will start out pretty general in nature and, as we discuss each patch internally, the lists will become more refined as we add and remove fixes and features from the goals list. Eventually, I would like to be able to post a plan for up to three patches out, so you have a general idea of where things are heading.

 

So to start things off, here is a list of goals we have for the 1.12 patch:

• Eliminate the errors caused by transitioning with familiars summoned.
  
• Fix the issue where the Use Magic Device skill takes priority over caster levels.
  
• Allow Warlocks to be able to take crafting feats.
  
• Eliminate area transition crashes.
  
• Fix the issue where swapping spells on level-up makes characters invalid.
  
• Update the Dedicated Server Creator to install NX1 files and model directories.
  
• Provide more detail in the Multiplayer "missing file" error message.
  
• Eliminate the item identification price discrepancies between the toolset and the price displayed in-game.
  
• Fix 75 spells.
  
• Make appropriate spells able to be scribed to a scroll.
  
• Allow Armorrulestats.2da to be readable from hak pack in-game.
  
• Implement stealth animations for playable races.
  
• Add in about 20 more spells. [Bolderisingification by me...]
  
• Bind the player list to the P key.
  
• Implement the UI feature to change portraits in-game.
  
• Implement multi-server portal support.
  
• Increase the dedicated server player limit to 120.
  
• Implement the ability to change the loot bag appearance.

 

 

Now, as I said, this list can change. We are feeling pretty confident about it now, but in game development there are always snags and issues that prevent some things. It is also important that you realize that this is not a promise of what will be fixed and when, but more of a list of goals that we hope to achieve. Some of the items on this list are so risky that they could bump some items to a later patch.

 

Also, just because you do not see the issue that is important to you in this list does not mean it has been forgotten. Chances are your issue is scheduled for a later patch.

 

Personally, I am pretty excited about the new changes. Hopefully you are too. We are currently scheduling the first patch to be released around February 11, but there are some things that may push this back a bit.

 

Hopefully this change means they're applying the methods that made Mask of the Betrayer so good to the patching process .

 

As small as it seems... I still wish they'd implement some sort of head tracking. It looks absurd to have Khelgar talking to my character's crotch... it really does.

[Web Rider]

You know honestly I gave up on updating my game weeks ago.

[stoffe]

As small as it seems... I still wish they'd implement some sort of head tracking. It looks absurd to have Khelgar talking to my character's crotch... it really does.

 

Probably too late for that, model animation changes are probably too time consuming to implement in a patch. So it if happens it would probably be in some future expansion pack. Besides, the halfling/gnome/dwarf characters would probably develop a sore neck after talking to all the humans in the game with all that looking up.

[Pavlos]

The patch is out, guys.

 

Changed 2DAs:

 

For NWN2-ONLY Builders:

des_crft_scroll.2da

des_crft_spells.2da

keymap.2da

placeables.2da

racialsubtypes.2da

trees.2da

 

 

For MoTB Builders:

baseitems.2da

des_crft_scroll.2da

des_crft_spells.2da

domains.2da

itemprops.2da

keymap.2da

placeables.2da

racialsubtypes.2da

spells.2da

vfx_persistent.2da

visualeffects.2da

 

Note: The TLK file has also been updated.

[Balderdash]

How is it? Any problems with it? I installed it this morning but I'm not playing NWN2 at the moment.

[Pavlos]

Source.

 

1.12 seems to be shaping up nicely:

 

• Eliminate the errors caused by transitioning with familiars summoned.
  
• Fix the issue where the Use Magic Device skill takes priority over caster levels. (Fixed as of 2/1)
  
• Allow Warlocks to be able to take crafting feats. (Fixed as of 1/28)
  
• Eliminate area transition crashes.
  
• Fix the issue where swapping spells on level-up makes characters invalid. (Fixed as of 1/11).
  
• Update the Dedicated Server Creator to install NX1 files and model directories. (Fixed as of 2/1)
  
• Provide more detail in the Multiplayer "missing file" error message.
  
• Eliminate the item identification price discrepancies between the toolset and the price displayed in-game. (Fixed as of 1/11).
  
• Fix 75 spells. - May move to next patch as we may need to include all spell fixes at once.
  
• Make appropriate spells able to be scribed to a scroll. (Arcane spells complete)
  
• Allow Armorrulestats.2da to be readable from hak pack in-game. (fixed as of 1/28)
  
• Allow dieties.2da to be readable from hak pack in-game. (fixed as of 2/1)
  
• Fix issues with Invisibility.
  
• Bind the player list to the P key.
  
• Implement the UI feature to change portraits in-game.(Implemented as of 1/11).
  
• Implement multi-server portal support.
  
• Increase the dedicated server player limit to 120. (Fixed as of 1/11 - Player limit will be 96).
  
• Natural AC is not working properly (Fixed as of 1/28).
  
• Losing points in UMD can cause items to be destroyed. - 80% Complete
  
• Spellcasting classes not adding together in regards to prerequisites for feats and epic spells.
  
• Non-MoTB players can see the low-light vision effect around other players (Added to the patch).
  
• Fix the issue where splitting dropped items can cause crashes (Fixed as of 2/1).