After airing on TechTV the Penultima Series is known by almost every Neverwinter Nights gamer.  Here at www.neverwinterconnections.com Stefan Gagne (aka TwoFlowers) is very involved in the community and gave us the opportunity to talk with him about his series Penultima, and the future of it. 

ShaperMC: What dungeons and dragons background do you have?  What other RPG background do you have (CRPG, Consol Video games, Other Table Top games)? 

Stefan Gagne: Very little D&D background. Nobody local to me was interested in playing it, and I was pretty young at the time so I couldn't go through the mathematical gymnastics needed to play. I have done a lot of free-form role-playing on TinyMUSH (MUCK, MOO, MUSE, etc) type online games, though -- no stats, no dice, just character and interaction and storytelling. Good stuff.  

ShaperMC: Do you have any computer programming experience? 

Stefan Gagne: Tons. I started on a Timex-Sinclair 1000 in the early 80's (and if you know what that is, congrads, you earned a Geek Point) and went on from there. I program databases professionally for the Food and Drug Administration now.I also have some game-programming experience, but not much -- I started to get into it right when the 'One Man Band' shareware game developer notion was going out the window. For the longest time, unless you knew how to code to the graphics hardware, you couldn't make a game. That's why I love 'construction set' games like NWN, where they do the hard stuff and you just design your content for their engine. 

ShaperMC: Penultima has what seems to me a lot of references from other games.  What, to you, was the largest influence for the game.  

Stefan Gagne: More books than games, even if I toss in jokes about MMORPGs and the like... hands down, the #1 influence is Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" series of books. But really, fantasy-comedy is not a terribly new concept, authors have been doing it for a long time. I just did it in NWN.  

ShaperMC: I know that Penultima: ReRolled is coming out soon.  What surprises should we expect from this new mod?  

Stefan Gagne: It's a couple orders of magnitude better than Pest Control, that's for sure. I actually know what I'm doing now! Whee! Some major stuff you can expect: A Hakpak packed with custom content like objects, portraits, sounds and music (and yet clocking in at a mere 2 megs)... Pausinas's henchman AI system and the ability to hire a variety of henchman for every module, with each having unique sub quests... yet another involved mystery story that covers the span of five modules... a richer Penultima City experience, with better shopping, more custom equipment, and a VERY nice DragonBites(tm) challenge dungeon.  

ShaperMC: After ReRolled will there be any more mods to come or will you be taking a break for a bit? 

Stefan Gagne: A BREAK. I have many other projects, including fiction writing (http://pixelscapes.com/unrealestate) which need tending to. When I get back to doing NWN I probably won't do any more long-arc campaigns... just Penultima one-shots and other smaller things, maybe a few more serious modules. Not sure yet.   

ShaperMC: Where do you expect NWN to go in the future? 

Stefan Gagne: The bargain bin. Which is a good thing, since it'll get more folks playing.  Seriously, we'll see more hakpak usage (and BETTER hakpak usage), which will become common and accepted... an expansion or two from Bioware to give us all a good content-base to work from... stuff like that. I'm not a soothsayer but I definitely see things looking bright.   

ShaperMC: As of right now how long do you expect to support NWN? 

Stefan Gagne: I'm finishing ReRolled, then maybe doing some one-shots, but I can't promise anything beyond that. I have a whole lot of hobbies and projects and interests, and nobody plays a game forever, you know? I'm guessing NWN'll be around another year or three, particularly with diehard players... it's got longevity, unless Billy Boy in Redmond decides to break compatibility with it in Palladium.   

ShaperMC: After being mentioned on TechTV, Neverwinter Vault Top Mods, and Even BioWare's forum do you feel that this “popularity” has gone to your head or affected what you plan to do with NWN? 

Stefan Gagne: If it's affected my plans, it's in a good way -- I've got enough confidence to go ahead with a VERY ambitious game plan for ReRolled. I probably wouldn't have launched that effort if the reviews on Penultima were tepid. It's also helpful to others, in a way: if I can get people to accept using hakpaks by riding that wave of popularity with ReRolled, it might gain more acceptance for haks across the board for other great developers. Haks really are the future of NWN, and the sooner folks get used to them, the better. As for the swelled head syndrome, I try not to let it get to me. I actively hype/promote my stuff since hey, who else is gonna? but beyond that I'm not too hyper about it. I know that this is basically 15 minutes of fame, and being a popular amateur game designer for one specific game system is kind of a niche-celebrity that's not even a blip on the world's radar.   

ShaperMC: Have you been contacted from BioWare at all regarding their proposed “Collectors Edition” with fan content included? 

Stefan Gagne: Nope, I haven't. I'd be more than willing to put my stuff on the disc -- it's in the EULA that they can do it whether I like to or not, of course, but I'm hoping they'll be polite and ask first. (I'm on shaky copyright ground, but I think I still retain rights to the story/characters/creative content. I could easily transplant the entire thing into another fantasy gaming system or write a pure text novel with it, after all.)   

ShaperMC: Stefan, do you have any other comments that you would like to add about NWN?  

Stefan Gagne: Why didn't they put a Gelatinous Cube in the toolkit? Cubes RULE! They're cube-shaped and ooze all over the place and eat flesh. Who can't love that? Maybe I need to start a petition online or something -- www.saveourcubes.com. CUBE! CUBE! CUBE!