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RPGVault has tossed up the third part of their Bioware Interview with Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka. It deals with NwN - and here's something about how multiplayer influenced the development of the game:
Jonric: In Neverwinter Nights, multiplayer seems to be a core design element whereas the Baldur's Gate games were basically single-player with multiplayer capability added. To what degree is this description accurate, and in what ways has the shift in emphasis affected the development process?
Ray Muzyka: Yes, the Baldur's Gate series was single-player focused while the development approach for Neverwinter Nights has been directed right from the start towards multiplayer. In fact, we learned a lot in the development of Baldur's Gate about how to design a game to be easily adapted to multiplayer. Based on what we have learned, we created a powerful multiplayer engine for Neverwinter - the single-player game is basically a multiplayer session with only one player in it. This doesn't detract in any way from the storyline of NWN however - we're working hard to ensure that the story in NWN is just as good in solo mode as the storyline of say Baldur's Gate II. Neverwinter Nights has very compelling single-player - both in the campaign shipping with the game, and in modules created by the fans. In fact, in some ways NWN will be more interesting to play, because you can alternate sessions (continuing through the storyline all the while) in either single- or multiplayer modes depending on how you want to play the game at various times.
Greg Zeschuk: What this means is we make design decisions based on the focus of the game. For example, the conversation system in Baldur's Gate required all players to pause and watch the conversation, while the conversation system in Neverwinter Nights doesn't require all people to pause for the conversation as it is duplicated both in text bubbles over the heads of the characters having the conversation, and in the text window at the bottom of the game screen. There are a number of decisions that we have made in Neverwinter Nights to facilitate multiplayer while being careful not to detract from single player |
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Bioware Interview Part 3
