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As if the folks at BioWare aren't busy enough working towards the release of Neverwinter Nights, their lead developers seem to be taking more and more time to do quick interviews around the 'net. Neverwinter Stratics recently contacted Trent Oster with several questions regarding the development of NWN that cover a wide variety of topics, from functionality to possible server issues.

It may surprise some people to hear that there are independent NWN server projects out there that plan to use multiple servers to create their gameworlds. Oster notes that stringing them together will require the use of portals, which should not be a processor-intensive feature. Also worth noting is that most everything, including dice rolls, rules, and spell effects, will be calculated on the servers themselves. This is one of NWN's anti-hacking measures that will prevent clients from using hacked data in their games.

Oster also discusses the possibility of adding the content of options books to the NWN sometime in the future:

[NWN Stratics]:  With the release of players options books adding more depth to a character's magic - will this allow wizards and mages to specialize in a spell as mentioned in the options books like a fighter can specialize in a specific weapon when playing Neverwinter Nights?

[Trent Oster]:  In NWN we are focusing on implementing the rules outlined in the three core 3rd Edition rulebooks: the Players' Handbook, the Dungeon Masters' Guide, and the Monster Manual. Once we've laid a solid foundation with our initial release, we can always expand into the various "players' options" books from there. We've been poring over all of them as they hit shelves and there's definitely some exciting stuff in there.

Neverwinter Stratics - Trent Oster Interview

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