1/13/00 - Latest News

The Progress of NWN
Berendir @ 15:49 EST

Progress report on Neverwinter Nights

PROGRAMMING:

December was a good month for programming, with substantial progress on the area transition system and the AI pathfinding code. We now have an annoying NPC (shades of "Noober," anyone?) who will blindly follow you from area to area. The chat system is progressing well, with the basic system functional and working well. On the graphics engine front, we have added a few new visual effects and refined the tools for art creation. Our next demo is going to look amazing.

ART:

For the Art Department, December was all about concepting. We put a lot of thought and argument into the in-game user interfaces and came up with a format that we're quite happy with. There are still a few quirks to be worked out, of course, but we'll be able to get a better handle on things as we move from the concept stage and into the implementation of a few working prototypes. Additionally, we burned a fair amount of time into art scheduling and personnel planning to make sure that the department's a well-oiled machine in time for our headlong dive into full implementation.

DESIGN:

The design group spent December creating implementation plans for the first modules in the first environment. The plan for module 101 spans 35 tight single-spaced pages, with every detail you need to know to build the entire module. The effort spent now on the implementation plans will save a ton of effort in the implementation and testing stages, later in the development cycle. We're also busy balancing our spell lists and detailing the various game effects for the programmers to start working on.

Overall, December went quite well. Every day I see some new idea or new interpretation of our vision, making the experience of working on NWN a magical one. The ideas and suggestions on the message boards continue to amaze me and drive the team forward. We can't imagine a better project to be working on.

Source: Neverwinter Nights Vault