Neverwinter Nights 2 Designer Diary #1

GameSpot has published their first Neverwinter Nights 2 designer diary, in which Obsidian Entertainment's Chris Avellone gives an overview of what the team has done to improve upon the first Neverwinter Nights.
It was no easy task, however; not only did we have the high expectations of the first game and the expansions to live up to (easily five to six years of a labor of love by Bioware and company), but we also had to see in what ways we could improve the toolset, the gameplay, and the graphics even further. In the end, we did end up recoding a great deal of the toolset to make changes for the fans and make scripting and layout a bit easier, and I think the mod community will be pretty happy with the end result. The exterior environment changes alone are pretty amazing, with a variety of tinting and layout options allowing you to modify the skybox and the terrain to create cool fantasy locales or even fantastical extraplanar locations such as Baator or the Abyss.

You'll also find a new "official" movie for the game in their media section, so be sure to check that out as well.