http://www.fileplanet.com/files/110000/117606.shtml
interview
http://www.homelanfed.com/index.php?id=11152
There is no doubt about it; Rick Francis stays busy. He has already headed up two mod teams that added co-op features to Rune and MechWarrior 4 and will do the same for MW4: Mercenaries. However, he has also created a new free module for BioWare's RPG Neverwinter Nights based in part on Eye of the Beholder, the classic RPG from Westwood Studios. HomeLAN got a chance to chat with Francis about his newest creation for Neverwinter Nights.
HomeLAN - First, what was your reaction when Neverwinter Nights was finally released?
Rick Francis - I was very excited, I was one of the original beta testers for NWN and we got to test the game all the way up to the end of chapter 1. I couldn’t wait to play the full game and see how the rest of the story unfolded. BioWare did an outstanding job on NWN, and to this day is without a doubt one of the best RPG games on the market.
HomeLAN - Why did you decide to make a new module for the game?
Rick Francis - Eye of the Beholder was the first RPG game I ever played; I totally fell in love with the game and would literally stay up till 3 in the morning playing it. I have always been a big fan of the Eye of the Beholder series, to this day I still play the game on my 2 gig pc, and amazingly it plays almost perfectly except it needs a sound patch for the updated sound cards. I have always wanted to make an RPG game and I couldn’t think of a better game to convert over to a modern title then EOB. We were going to convert Eye of the Beholder 2, but Staffan Bengtsson has taken up that project with his team. Steffan and I have become friends over the last month and have been crossing ideals back and forth to make each other’s mod even better. The end result has been really great for both of us.
HomeLAN - What is your opinion of the Aurora tool set for the game?
Rick Francis - The tool set has to be one of the easiest tools on the market for any one to use when it comes to building a level, This was one of the main reasons we choose it, because it had the perfect layout for halls and rooms, it was perfect for what we needed to do because it was very close to how Eye of the Beholder’s original halls were laid out.
But on the other hand it requires a great amount of scripting to make your mod work. I was a little intimidated by the scripting part because I am not a programmer. I’m more of a level designer, but I needed my mod to work so I went to work learning as much as I could about scripting and getting the information needed to make my scripts work for the mod. Believe me it was very painful at first, but after many hours I started to figure out many of the scripts and how they worked. I still have to run to the BioWare forums from time to time to get help on a script. The forums are the best place for any beginner to learn when it comes to getting help or a script.
As for the Aurora tools, I have to say they are pretty incredible when it comes to laying out a dungeon. You can build your self a dungeon in less then an hour. This does not include the scripting needed to make doors and other events work. Then BioWare has also been introducing new tools that add to the current tool set. The latest being the plot builder. Now that is a great tool, it is used to create new plots for your story and build on those. Then there are the many items that are built into the tools set like the weapons and armor that can be used and placed all around your dungeon. These are the same items BioWare used when making NWN.
BioWare has gone to a lot of trouble to make these tools work and benefit the mod community, and it has shown, there are currently over 5000 mods that have been created by the community.
I dare anyone to try and complete them all
HomeLAN - What can you tell us about the module you created for Neverwinter Nights?
Rick Francis - Our module is a very close representation of the original Eye of the Beholder crated by Westwood Studios and SSI back in 1991. We have tried to stay as close the original plot as possible but we had to make many changes and add many things that would make the mod an even better game. You really can’t compare our mod with the original game when it comes to game play. They are just two completely different games. When the original EOB came out it was revolutionary, the same with NWN, but you play as an overhead vice a first person type that EOB plays like.
In our mod you will find six new henchman that you will hire, the henchman are already dead, you will find a pile of bones and you can either pick up the bones and take them with you until you are able to resurrect them or if you have a scroll of Raise Dead, you can at that point resurrect that henchman. Then you can talk with him or her and ask them to join you.
You will also find 10 new monsters that have been added to help enhance the game play; many of the dungeons are dark and creepy and are with out much light. This really helps to enhance the player excitement when playing the mod. I can’t stress this enough about lighting, it can make or break the game, along with lighting we have placed many sounds that really help to bring out the feel of the dungeon.
Our mod follows the original story pretty closely, but we did and had to side step that story also to make the mod more challenging, The level lay out is almost perfect to the original game. If you have the old clue book you could follow those maps and find your way around easily. We have also created many new side quests to keep the game play moving along. Many of the quests you will be given are from encounters that you will find along the way. Many of the items like keys or plot items you find will be in a create or chest, the chest will be lit up by a light once you have taken the item from the chest the light will disappear and a duplicate item will be placed in the divining pool.
The Divining pool in our mod is unique in its own way; the way it works is when a plot items is found, a duplicate key or items will be placed in the pool. This was done because of multiplayer, we had some instances while playing a player would crash and he was carrying the key that was needed to open a door, well the player that just crashed out was carrying the key and now you are unable to get through a door so the game has come to a standstill. With our divining pool you can now teleport back grab the key and now go through that door.
Another feature we implemented was dying; after you die you are teleported back the beginning of the current level you are on, the same goes for the henchman. When you die you are penalized a small fee of XP and money. Not as bad as BioWare’s
then you can rehire your henchman and teleport back to your last location. Another feature we have done and have taken some criticism on is the way we created our weapons and items, we have added many mods to our weapons that will make a weapon very powerful but there is a reason for this, we have also pumped up the monster you will be fighting, they are tougher and armored better. We have gone to a lot of pain to balance this out and from all of the feedback we received it’s working very well. Just because you see all of these mods on a weapon, does not mean that you are going to be killing that monster really easy, trust me you won’t be. There is one thing when you go to play this mod, and that is you must turn of level restrictions before playing this mod or you will not be able to use half of the items in the game.
HomeLAN - How hard was it to create the module you wanted to make for the game?
Rick Francis - It has been very hard; with our mod we had to make many changes to keep up with the players expectations of the current era. We have created over 200 new magic weapons and armor along with many magic items. We have taken a lot of heat because of all the items we placed in the game, when we started out to make Eye of the Beholder; we created it for a multiplayer game only so we placed a lot of items, the one thing I hated when I played Diablo was playing with greedy players. When you killed a boss, you had to be really fast at grabbling as much as you could. So we placed many items to try and defeat this type of player.
We went back and had to reevaluate that decision because when we thought about it most people were not going to be playing this mod on the net. So we went back and started redoing many of the levels and thinning down the amount of encounters in the mod. We though we had a good balance, but the NWN community son let us know how wrong we were, so we are really thinning it down this time. We have reduced the amount of chest and crates by 50 percent; this should make everyone happy now.
NWN did not include many of the Creatures that EOB needed so we have had to rely on the modding community to create many of the monsters that we are using. And still we don’t have all of the monsters that are needed. There are six monsters that arte missing in our mod so we had to use many of the monsters that came with NWN to fill in the gaps. The modding community is still hard at work making new models, but we just don’t know when those will be done and some of the ones we need are not even being made.
HomeLAN - Are you pleased with the reaction your module has received from people who have played it?
Rick Francis - Yes we are, but we have had some players complain about the mod because it was too laggy on a lower end pc. So we have gone back and reevaluated the mod and made some major changes to it. What we did was split the levels in half, this has made a huge difference in lag. The feedback from those who have played the new version has been great. We should have this new version ready to go in a few weeks. Our thread on the BioWare forum that has had over 9000 hits in just 2 weeks, that’s more than most of the sticky thread BioWare has up. We have had a lot of feedback from the players on new ideals of what we need to do to fix issues they have found. We have taken into consideration all of the feedback and tried to implement as much of it as possible. The result has created an even better mod from the community’s ideals, and they have some really good ones too.
After we released the initial mod Samantha contacted me, an English major and is now an editor. She has volunteered her time to restructure our conversations and any grammar that we put into the game. This alone will help to enhance the game. Also on the team is Mike Nguyen he is our artist, he is doing all of the portraits for the original characters. These portraits will be used on our characters that you will hire or interact with. We have had many people volunteering to help with the mod; it really kewl how many people out there are offering to help with the project.
Right now we are looking for someone that knows how to make models; we need some one to create a few of the monsters that are missing from the game. If anyone is interested please contact me. You will need to know 3DSMAX.
HomeLAN - What is your opinion of BioWare's support for third party modules?
Rick Francis - I think the release of the Aurora tools speaks for its self when talking about BioWare’s commitment to the modding community; the release of these tools and BioWare’s forums has help to produce some of the best mods and levels that I have ever played. BioWare monitors the forum every day, they are always on hand to help anyone when they have an issue or problem with the game or need help with the Aurora tools. Derek French, one of the producers of NWN has been a lot of help to many others and me. BioWare has a great bunch of people working on their team.
HomeLAN - Are there any improvements you would like to see BioWare put into the tools and the game?
Rick Francis - Yes! More Models, many, many more. That has been a very big issue with many people. I would like to see more Ancient run down type of dungeons, or dungeons that are partly flooded with water. I would also like to see more things like having breakable walls that you can smash down to get to a secret area. We also want to see more Monsters added like the Mind Flayer, or Basilisk, or Medusas, More types of Doors or lava rivers, and regular streams running through a dungeon. The list can go on and on. BioWare is aware of these requests from the community. I just hope they will follow through and add them.
Rick Francis - BioWare has done many things to help the community by adding new creatures with each new patch that has come out. We hope they will continue with this and bring even more monster packs out.
HomeLAN - Do you have any plans to make new modules for Neverwinter Nights in the near future?
We do, in our mod we have a secret dungeon that you can find. We have a quest in that dungeon that you have to complete to get out of the dungeon. We also have a caved in area that leads down to another area. This area is not available but we plan on returning to this area. We placed the secret area in the game to tease many with it as something they would like to see completed. As you leave the secret dungeon Khelben Blackstaff, a very powerful mage, greets you. He kind of tells you to forget about that area and move on with the current quest.
So who knows, we many revisit this area if everyone thinks its worth doing.
HomeLAN - Finally, is there anything else you wish to say about Eye of the Beholder before we wrap this up?
Rick Francis - Yes, if you played our original mod and had issues, then you will have to try out newest version 2 when it’s released. We have taken into consideration all users request and complaints and fixed up the mod accordingly. We hope that this new version will satisfy those who had issues before. And those of you that have played our mod and love it, well you all will really love the newer improved version.