I thought I'd give a shout out about the NWN2 Podcast. I've been listening to it now and then as I work on the character creator and other projects the last few weeks, and I've found it to be really enjoyable little show. The two guys who run the show are extremely enthusiastic about the game and are trying to find out as much about it as they can. It's fun to hear from people who like the game as much as I do. ;)The best feature about their podcasts are their full-length interviews. Here are the interviews I've heard on their show the last few weeks:
- Episode 13 -Michele aka Liso, a fan who organized an IRC chat with Obsidian.
- Episode 14 - Bruce Nielson of OnlineRoleplayer, and also Hall of Fame author for his The Light Reborn series for NWN1 (of which I began the first episode, but never finished).
- Episode 15 - Annie Carlson of Obsidian Entertainment, who seems to have designed a lot of the in-game items for the OC, and is now working as an assistant writer on some undisclosed work.
I expect that this most likely means that they're working on an expansion pack, which would not be a surprise but is nonetheless great to hear. It will be interesting to see if they allow for epic levels in this expansion pack, or if they'll follow the pattern from nwn1 and hold off on epic levels until a second expansion pack. Give how popular epic levels were in nwn1, my guess is that they'll be here sooner rather than later...
Yeah - I, too, think that we'll see the epic levels soon. But as Obsidian has also hinted towards their being coming at some point, it'd be great news if the first expansion didn't have them... :p
ReplyDeleteBy the way, a guy from Obsidian has stated that they're working on new content some time earlier, too (in one of the interviews with the Italian folks). But it is great to hear that again. I need to hear that at times until we get the announcement... Also, it is good to hear that the new stuff is super sweet. ;)
Cheers...
Yeah, I've seen indications of that before as well, but it's always nice to hear them again. :)
ReplyDeleteI think part of the reason that we saw the epic stuff move until the second expansion in NWN1 is that they had to do so much reconfiguring of the character class system to get it to work. SoU had a new tileset or two, a henchman inventory system (I think), plus some new creatures, spells, and feats. Not a small amount of work, but with the exception of the inventory system, it seems like that wouldn't have taken much novel coding of the game. The epic levels, however, may have been more of a significant challenge to implement.
But now, much of that work has already been done. In fact, I was surprised that epic levels weren't in the first release. It seems likely that the primary reason for this was so that they could have a major draw for the 1st expansion. And, after playing the nwn2 OC, I'm guessing that the expansion will continue the story of the original campaign, which would, of course, necessitate epic levels.
I just hope we get a second expansion once epic levels are about. Maybe that'll be when they add horses or something! ;D -B