BioWares Scott Greig, manden bag MDK 2, udtaler sig om deres kommende projekt Neverwinter Nights. Spillet skulle gøre brug af den såkaldte ‘Aurora Engine’ som er en videreudvikling af grafikmotoren i MDK 2.
Neverwinter Nights er et 3D role-playing game (RPG). Scott Greig fortæller om lidt om de erfaringer BioWare har høstet under udviklingen af MDK 2. Man har haft mulighed for at implementere mange af de samme grafiske effekter der optræder i MDK 2. Spillets grafiksystem er dog et helt ny program og deltilhørende nyskabelser. Greig opremser selv, i Voodoo Extremes Q&A session, nogle af de nyheder der allerede er indbygget:



  • The new engine is totally client/server multi-player enabled.
  • The framework has been ported to Windows, Mac OS, Linux and BeOS.
  • A powerful, flexible animation system that will allow us have a very large amount of animation data. This animation system allows us to inherit animations from a base object and override specific animations. For example, a dwarf would inherit most of the animations from the humanoid base object, but the attack animations would be adjusted to compensate for the dwarf’s smaller stature.
  • Transform and Lighting enabled, 3D rendering engine that allows for dynamic lighting, shadows, environment mapping and an expanded particle system.

Mange har ærgret sig gule og grønne over, at MDK serien ikke har en egentlig multi-player mulighed. Det skulle der nu været rådet bod på. På spørgsmålet om hvornår Neverwinter Nights skulle være færdigt svarer Scott Greig:

We have the framework completed and ported to several operating systems. We have the basic game play component functioning, but most of the D&D third edition rules still have to be implemented. This is the part of the game that will occupy the bulk of the programming effort from now until the ship date. Feature-wise the graphic engine has all of the major features completed except for the collision detection code. There are a host of minor features and a lot of cleanup and optimizations to do on it still. Overall we are still on track for our Q2 2001 ship date.

Spillet kommer altså først på gaden tidligst i første kvartal 2001. Hvis bare Neverwinter Nights har en brøkdel af MDK seriens atmosfære, skal det nok kunne klare sig i den stigende konkurrence på markedet.