Thanks for taking the time, Rob. Before we get into the new expansion, was the team happy with how Mask of the Betrayer turned out? Fans really seemed to enjoy it.

We were pretty pleased with MoTB. There will always be things that we feel we could have done differently, or better, but overall, MoTB worked out well.

Moving on to Storm of Zehir: What’s special about the Chultan Peninsula that makes it an idea location for the expansion?

We chose the Chultan peninsula because it hadn't been featured in many D&D games previous to this one. It was exotic and exciting to many of us, and it gave us the chance to add some dinosaurs to the game. Other than monkeys, you can't really choose anything better than dinosaurs.

Without giving too much away, what’s the premise of Storm of Zehir?

At the beginning of Storm of Zehir, you and your new adventuring party are aboard the Vigilant, a ship that's sailing near the Chultan Peninsula. Unfortunately, the ship is sabotaged in the middle of a vicious storm, causing your vessel to wreck on the shore of Samarach, a xenophobic jungle nation. After overcoming a band of vicious goblinoids, you find yourself brought to the capital of Samarach. From there, you enter the employ of the ship's owner, who tasks you with finding out who sabotaged the ship, what happened to the cargo, and locating some missing crewmembers. From there, you're swept into the larger story of Storm of Zehir.

One of the big features is the new Overland Map design. For those that aren’t aware, how does this work and what can gamers expect when travelling on it?

The overland map is a miniaturized section of the world that brings more of an exploration element into Neverwinter Nights 2, as opposed to the instant travel option of our previous games. While traveling on the overland map, players can expect to find hidden treasure and dungeons, as well as run into various hostile, friendly, and "special" encounters. The hostile enemies are especially deadly, as they will detect your party and attack you when you get too close. Areas that are farther away from civilization will have tougher encounters, too, so you'll need to balance the risk of exploration with the reward of powerful loot. Your skills, feats and abilities will play a part in your game experience on the overland map, as will those of your party.

I have read and was told at E3 that the expansion isn’t as linear – I even read references to the freedom of a game like Fallout. So your party has options – but in what way? Are you given multiple quests or can you travel to where you want when you want?

The player will have a lot of freedom in Storm of Zehir. They will be able to wander around and complete quests in the order they want and can travel to a wide range of locations as they play. Keep in mind, though, that we want to tell a story and that means there will be a start point and an end point and some key events throughout the game, but how you go from A to B is up to the player.

Full party customization – that‘s something fans have been after for quite some time. What made you want to add this feature – was it purely fan demand winning the day? It really gives a Baldur’s Gate vibe. Was that by design?

We drew a lot of inspiration from the fans, but we tried to make a game that we would like to play as well. We have all played games like Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale. Many of our key employees, and certainly Obsidian's owners, were involved in the creation of those games, so we draw from those games as well, but we don't go out and say "let's be Baldur's Gate."