Well it's official - Expansion pack for NWN 2

[Wyvern]

http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/vi ... &forum=109

Epic levels too.

I really am at a loss for words.

[Atharin]

There, there.

[StormRunner]

That's... wow.

[Stormknife]

New races and base classes? Oh boy.

Looks like the epic level thread wasn't as worthless as we thought.

[coruscadragon]

http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/vi ... &forum=109

Epic levels too.

I really am at a loss for words.

i've got a few... but they would just get filtered out by the forum, so i'm not gonna bother...

[Rob]

They really need to finish the original game before they start on an expansion.

[Kell]

They really need to finish the original game before they start on an expansion.

[Evelond Formos]

You now have 333 posts, Rob. October, which I recognize as 'the fall month', is 6 months away. Is this a sign?

Guess this means the playerbase is going to take a leap...

EDIT- I'm betting three emperors the Mystic Theurge is introduced in this expansion.

[Atharin]

Not true. Whereas patches are upheld by a small, usually less experienced team, an expansion will not only deliver many of the things that didn't make it into the final cut, but many bug fixes will become top priority issues again.

[Stormknife]

However, it also increases the likelihood that some bug fixes will be put off until the expansion comes out, just to make the expansion programmer's lives easier.

[Atharin]

The live team (Those currently working on patches) are not the same team of people working on the expansion. If anything, this means they have a definite deadline to get a bunch of fixes ready.

Good news, as far as fixes are concerned. Not as good news as far as game balance goes ;) Eugh, new base classes.

[Wyvern]

If what happened after SoU was released for NWN 1, people will be more upset over what new toys in the expansion wont be available in PWs because they are so rediculously unbalancing it wont even be funny. Expect epic levels, feats, spells, and depending on what races, classes and PrCs they choose to add, maybe those also, to be locked on release. Ultimately, expansion packs result in more being taken away more than they provide. They are nothing more than a cash cow for Atari. They certainly aren't releasing it for the benefit of the community.

[Stormknife]

You're misunderstanding me.

The programmers for the expansion need to know what state the game engine is in when the expansion comes out. Once they get past a certain point in the development of the expansion, I'll be surprised if there's any major patches released. It's not because their patch programmers are working on the expansion; far from it. It's because they have to retest all their content every time a new patch comes out.

Better to lump it all into the expansion, test the expansion, and then let us find all the real bugs.

[Wyvern]

I would imagine the 1.06 patch will be the last patch before the expansion.

Or maybe the expansion is that patch. We just have to pay for it.

[Atharin]

There are already plans for 1.07, actually.

At any rate, testing is more often than not a post-production deal; If they had to test everything once every little modification is made, we'd never see the release of some games.