Neverwinter Nights 2: Mysteries of Westgate Interview

The guys at RPG Codex have conducted their own interview with Ossian Studios’ Alan Miranda and Luke Scull about the team’s Neverwinter Nights 2: Mysteries of Westgate premium module.

Q: What have you learned from Daggerford? What were your best and worst design decisions?

Alan: On Daggerford we attempted to bite off more than we could chew, as Ossian was very much out to prove itself. Despite the difficulties we had in doing a game so large (25-30 hours), the benefits were that we developed something that stood out from the crowd of countless other NWN mods I think that was our best design decision. On MoW, however, we shifted to a more focused approach with team members specializing on what they’re best at (writing, scripting, or level design) instead of the Wild West approach we did on Daggerford, where designers fully implemented different parts of the critical path of the game by themselves (which was likely our poorest design decision because it forced us to do a lot of cleanup close to release).

We were also very mindful of the expectation that we were building a 15-hour adventure with MoW, and concentrating our efforts instead of spreading ourselves thin as on Daggerford. The day will come, however, where we’ll step onto a larger stage and once again attempt to take a giant bite, in much the same way as CD Projekt has done with The Witcher (which is a great game, by the way).

Luke: I wasn’t involved in Daggerford’s design and only joined the team shortly before release as a beta tester, but I’ll give my opinion on the game as a whole. I think it did a lot of things right and did them better and more professionally than almost every other module out there which you’d expect from the sheer size of the team and the game’s origins as a BioWare Premium Module. The world map was a terrific addition to NWN and the whole game felt very much like Baldur’s Gate 1, which I know had a massive influence on Alan. It was definitely a fun and absorbing game, which deserved all the plaudits it received.

However, there were a few notable weaknesses: The story was fairly average and diluted by the doubling of the module’s original size by sidequest-creep, and the henchmen were rather generic. I’m sure it was a learning experience for everyone on the team.