[MUD-Dev] Neverwinter Nights

[Trent Oster]

With regards to allowing the player to choose the view he/she
desires, I agree it would be optimal.  However, In practice we have
found a large number of art optimizations we can make based on a
top-down view, such as not modeling the undersides of anything and
it has allowed a greater texture density in the scene because of the
limited view volume.  In most cases the user view can only cover 3x3
tiles, where a first person view has a ever increasing number of
tiles visible as the view distance increases.  While it is true we
could make a short view volume and fog it out I believe it would
make for a worse end user experience.

With regards to the perception system you detail, In my experience
game development is all about what the end users experience.  Quite
often a simple system which feels correct in game is superior to an
accurate system in terms of performance and implementation time.
Game development takes a lot of time and you have to ask yourself at
every step "Will the end user notice this feature?", "Will this
feature make the game more fun to play?".  At the end of the day we
are creating entertainment and fun has to be our first priority.

As an aside, for NWN we didi implement a perception system, in the
form of the 3rd Edition Spot and Listen checks against the Hide and
Move Silent abilities.  Until you have a clear line of sight to a
creature or character in NWN the creature is not drawn.  If a
character or monster is invisible you are still making checks for
listen.  If you succeed in your check the creature becomes "visible"
and you can attack them or target spells at them.  So through the
3rd Edition D&D rules we have a limited "perception" system,
hopefully it makes the game more fun to play, allowing creature to
hide in the corner of a room, or behind a door.

--
Trent T. Oster
Producer - NWN
Bioware Corp.


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