GameSpy talks with Bioware's CEOs

[Prophet]

Okay, so it's a copy and paste job, but why should everyone else have to go bouncing around the web when I already do it.

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GameSpy: How's testing of the multiplayer aspects going?


Greg Zeschuk: Neverwinter Nights is designed as a true multiplayer app -- technically, it's always playing in multiplayer mode (for single-player games, this is with only one character, and for multiplayer, with more than one player). The storyline shipping with the game scales (encounter difficulty, etc.) to enable players playing by themselves to enjoy the game, as well as people playing in larger groups on a LAN or the Internet. Because of this approach to the game's architecture we're very confident in the stability of the multiplayer game. An excellent example of this was a recent load test we performed -- we had 2 servers filled with 32 people each and we had no problems whatsoever.

Ray Muzyka: Until that stress-test session crashed after about half an hour due to a non-multiplayer related bug, now since fixed, fortunately.

GameSpy: How will NWN stack up against the MMOGs we see out there?

Greg Zeschuk: Neverwinter Nights is a completely unique offering -- it's really unlike any other MMOG I've ever played. We expect the community will not only enjoy playing the game, but it will also grow by creating more varied types of content for other players to experience. We're really looking forward to seeing what the fans will do with the tools. We believe the market will continue to expand because of the content the fans are creating themselves -- we fully hope and expect to see our own form of Counter-Strike-like derivative created by some ingenious fans!

Ray Muzyka: Very true. However, at the same time, in that it combines the best features of both single-player and massively multiplayer games. At its core Neverwinter is a really good role-playing game -- the module creation tools (to allow for infinite replayability), dungeon master mode (to allow DM's to adjudicate game sessions if they wish), and multiplayer modes are additional facets that we hope will enhance the RPG experience even further.