Second NWN2 expansion: Storm of Zehir, out next week

[AcadiusLost]

Just a heads-up on what's coming down the pipeline in terms of the new expansion for NWN2:

A few snippets from a recent developers chat and Q/A session:

"Stealth animation is in, finally"

"Storm of Zehir includes over 40 new music tracks"

"There are a lot of new tileset textures in SoZ, some of which dramatically alter the look of existing sets."

"We've expanded the number of play modes to three by adding "Exploration Mode". Exploration Mode is sort of like playing in Strategy Mode in the old system with the camera directly focused on the character - but it has all of the defaults set up to play like NWN1."

They've also added a new base class (Swashbuckler for finesse fighter-types) and two new races; Gray Orcs at ECL+1, and Yuanti Pureblood at ECL+2. The new classes/races will likely be disabled early on for ALFA in order to maintain compatibility with MotB clients, but may become options to play once we've transitioned officially to the second expansion.

They are supposed to be releasing a patch next week as well, which will allow intercompatibility between those who have SoZ, and those who are just playing with NWN2+MotB. Also, fortunately, SoZ appears to be priced less than $30 for a change.

The european game manual has appeared on the web in advance of the game's release, and can be downloaded, perused here:
http://maud.metaboli.fr:3006/repository ... ual_en.pdf

So, a few new things to look forward to in the next month or so. I'll do what I can to make sure SoZ isn't required for NWN2 play for a fair interval after release (perhaps till after the holidays?) to avoid locking out players or DMs who aren't in a position to pick up the expansion as it comes out.

I'll post more on this as I find out more.

[MorbidKate]

Sweet stuff!

[indio]

Stealth anim is in, but from what I hear invisibility is still bugged in MP.

[dob85y]

Isnt there a MP invis fix in the vault, that intergrates hearing checks and chances to realise the is an invisable person nearby?

[ayergo]

mmmm Yuan ti.

[Kest]

Do they have the thing where the game will load haks at character creation?

[indio]

Not officially, but maybe soon after. Here's the latest official word:

2. Haks loading before character creation - This is in early implementation, but things are looking good. It seems to be working fine so far, but full testing is required.

[Burt]

I wonder if they've managed to improve network performance at all (or even tried).

[Teric neDhalir]

Found this is the docs for the new overland maps...

This is the percent chance (out of 100) that a random encounter will be generated every 6 seconds when the player is in the given trigger. In general, values between 10 and 20 are low, values from 20 to 30 are moderate, and anything greater is fairly high.

So a moderate rate of encounter is 20% every 6 seconds. Er, yikes. I can only hope that they're not cumlative..
Teric

[Swift]

Well NWN and NWN2 campaigns are far more combat heavy than anything we run here.

[Dorn]

SO if you patched accidently to 1.21. How do i get back?

[hollyfant]

How do i get back?

1. Endure derisive ridicule.
2. ...
3. Profit!

(sorry, dunno)

[AcadiusLost]

Re-installation is the only way I know of currently (though you know that, since you've already successfully reinstalled). On a brighter note, I finally managed to find the arbitrary arrangement of files that make the v1.021.1549 dedicated server client behave, so we should be able to transition to the new patch over the course of this week, workload and holiday travel permitting.