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Topic: NWN2: The Future (Read 986 times) |
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Forrestwolf
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Last On: 07/21/11
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Mortis -
Thanks very much for the heads-up on that! As someone who only uses the forums and only rarely uses IRC here, I'll now be sure to stop by sometime and take advantage of that opportunity.
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Venture
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I think what NWN2 really needs right now, to jump start the DM'd multiplayer community, is a DM-able multiplayer mod in the vein of Lazybone's mods, the old Saltmarsh mods, etc. In other words, a mod that is tailored for DM'd games, that can be picked up and played out of the box. Something that would become "the old standby." I've seen those NWN mods I mentioned be DM'd countless times here.
I think part of the problem with lack of testing of the DM client, DMFI, and mutliplayer, is there is not much to test it on right now. If there was a good mod or two, I think it would really get some games going.
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Dane Bramage
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That's exactly right, Venture. That's why Conor Knoxx is running Tragedy at Tragidor on Thursdays. Just to have something to DM. He don't do nothing (no offense Conor), but the mod wasn't designed to be DMed... or even MP.
I know Enoa is building, but I'm not sure the status or nature of his project. I have seen other folks mention it here and there on other boards besides this one, but again, the DMed nature of the project is questionable.
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Ghool
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I think the problem with DMing, and the reasons few have tried the DMFI tools, I think would be the system requirements. I personally am a bit bit doubtful if my machine would even be able to host DM'd or MP games at this point anyways.
As it stands, like it or not, NWN2 requires a pretty beefy rig to run smoothly, let alone run as a hosting server as well. I think this is the biggest stumbling block right now, as most of the community has become comfortable with NWN, and so few of us have the hardware to run NWN2 to it's full potential yet.
I would surmise that once people start updating their old hardware, we'll see a larger number of multi-player mods. At this point, I don't think many of us can host with a 100% chance of the server being stable.
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Bigbluepaw
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Instead of trying to get creative, why don't we just convert the Saltmarsh module from NWN to NWN2?
As I remember, there are roughly 10-12 areas, right? We could dumb it down to be very simple areas to start and progressively advance the areas to be more realistic over time.
The one downside is that most of the folks still in this community have already either played or DMed that modules to death. Thoughts?
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Dane Bramage
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I would probably pick something new and different, but yes... a one-shot format or something to take 4ish sessions is probably a good size.
From spending more time at the NWN2 forums, I know there is interest. People are looking for MP games.
Another possibility would be to take Tragedy at Tragidor and convert it to DMO/MP. It is an SP mod, and subsequently, there are some silly little issues... like journals not firing for everyone, etc. Fix that kind of stuff and take out all the NPC convos, and *bing*, you got a DMO/MP version.
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Venture
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I think BBP (*waves*) and Dane both have good ideas. I actually just started playing through Tragidor, to get an idea if it could be converted without much work to be "DM-able".
And if I recall, Saltmarsh also was largely interior areas, plus the town and the house grounds. Maybe pulling a prefab village off the vault, plus another prefab area to plop the house in, and then it would just be a matter of working with interior tiles. Using the mapper plugin, that could go pretty quickly (I find that interior building at times is actually quicker than in original NWN, thanks to that plugin). Of course, that's easy for me to say. I've been building for my campaign, so wouldn't want to get sucked into another time sink.
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The twin brother
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just a little crazy thought so you don't have to tell me how stupid this sounds...
how about every member (who concerns and wants to help in the future of NWN2) of NWC make some areas.
all the areas will be e mailed to a specific DM. (or to some).
the DM will make a module out of these areas and the DM will make a campaign in the module...
then there is a freindly MP module and a campaign of NWN2...
(or then those PW files will be needed too and that's make it harder...?)
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Ghool
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Making a module multi-player friendly vs. single player only is quite simple, aside from combat balancing, and class/skill specific tests.
It's just a matter of changing a line or two (sometimes even just a character or two)in the scripts to update the party's journal, and to set certain integers and checks on the module object vs. the individual character.
Why single player mod authors never seem to do this is something I fail to understand, as it literally takes about a minute while you're writing the scripts. It's just having some forethought, and thinking to one's self, 'Is it likely that some one is going to try this multi-player?' and making some simple adjustments to where information is stored and called from.
EDIT: I might try and 'transfer' one of my NWN projects into the NWN2 toolset to see how it takes. The question is now....which one to convert??
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| « Last Edit: on: Mar 29, 2007, 10:40PM » |
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Ghool
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Adjusting where information is stored and called from is very easy to do (without arousing the bug-monster), and as I mentioned above, building a module with 'multi-players in mind' is a matter of updating party journals, and storing integers (ie. the party already spoke to X NPC, vs. the specific PC spoke to X NPC), and it isn't going to arouse any bugs.
Party teleports, and long scripts is where things start to go awry. But, if you have a DM present, a majority of these minor issues can be bi-passed.
I think what we're asking for here is what I've mentioned; party journal updates, and certain NPC's recognizing they have spoken to some one in the PARTY, and not an individual character. So, it really is a simple matter to make these kinds of adjustments without opening a whole new can of....bugs. 
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Dane Bramage
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yeah... that's pretty much it, Ghool. and like you said, if a DM is present, then all the other stuff can be dealt with manually.
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Gulfwulf
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on Mar 29, 2007, 10:25 PM, Ghool wrote:| Why single player mod authors never seem to do this is something I fail to understand, as it literally takes about a minute while you're writing the scripts. It's just having some forethought, and thinking to one's self, 'Is it likely that some one is going to try this multi-player?' and making some simple adjustments to where information is stored and called from. |
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I think, Ghoul, that those who make sp mods either don't feel that their mods will be used for anything but sp or they don't know exactly how to make them mp friendly. I used to use the integer approach until I found out that you can test for specific journal entries and now use that instead. That way, all I have to do is make sure the player's whole party gets the journal entry, then test that to see if they've already talked to the NPC.
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Eliandi
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on Mar 28, 2007, 8:00 AM, Drengist wrote:Main problems for me that remain:
1. Making custom NPCs and items is a pain. An easy wizard is needed. Best would be something offical from OEI and not a user-plugin.
2. It's not easy to create an area with a working walkmesh, especially when you try to put many placeables in your city/village/dungeon. You are forced to bake the module very often, in order to see whether the placeables you used lead to a unwalkable tiles. Especially in big areas it's tiresome, to move things around until the walkmesh is fine.
3. Same goes for testing: You always have to bake the whole mod, when you want to test something. That leads on the positive side to the effect, that you built more accurate, because you know testing takes time. But on the opposite it makes fine-tuning in the end very time-consuming. Not to mention that you can' t let players hop on and off to test, because they need the newest pwc.
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Nice summary. Those issues are barriers to building for me.
Also the pwc file requirement is a general barrier to MP. I tried to hop on some random PWs this weekend, and all I saw required a pwc file. That small barrier was enough to make me shut down NWN2 and boot another game...and I'm a NWN vet who has wrestled with all manner of CC.
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Dane Bramage
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The PWC issue doesn't seem like it is going to effect us that much. Sure, a new file will have to be DLed each week, but that is really not that big of a deal. Even a couple hundred megs of stuff is not much of a DL. As I see it, PWs will be most effected by this, but even then.. any good RP based PW will have a web site that you would likely research before trying to log in anyway, right? I mean... it will cut down on the random traffic, but large haks and custom content for specific PWs already did that.
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Olias Stormcrow
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on Mar 30, 2007, 8:40 PM, Dane Bramage wrote:| The PWC issue doesn't seem like it is going to effect us that much. Sure, a new file will have to be DLed each week, but that is really not that big of a deal. Even a couple hundred megs of stuff is not much of a DL. As I see it, PWs will be most effected by this, but even then.. any good RP based PW will have a web site that you would likely research before trying to log in anyway, right? I mean... it will cut down on the random traffic, but large haks and custom content for specific PWs already did that. |
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I would point out here that not all members on NWC have high speed broadband internet access and that some ISPs have monthly download limits before the customer either gets cut off or incurs additional charges to their bills.
Whilst some NWN1 PWs do require downloads of additional or custom haks which can be large in size, this is a process that may be a one off or at worst an occasional event as new hak content is added. It is not something that is done every time a new area is added to a PW or a mod.
The CEP may be a large hak, but we only need to download it once to connect to every PW out there that uses it.
This is not the case with NWN2 PWs, where each and every one has it's own PWC file to download before you can gain access to the server.
Even if there were some form of streamed download of the PWC file for the server in question, either the server would take a hit or the file must be stored on an alternative location from which it will have to be downloaded.
Either way, we still return to the fact that for some members here that process will not be a quick one and as Eliandi said above, it can be a process that builds a barrier to playing MP.
It's not so bad if you only have to wait 5 minutes to download the files to connect to a server, find that you don't like it then move onto the next, but it does become a problem if it takes nearer an hour and uses up 10% of your download capacity for that month just to try a place out and come to the same conclusion.
Yes, it will mean that some PW players have to shop around more carefully for where they will game in future, but even then, there will always be additional downloads as more areas are added or the walkmeshs of existing areas are changed.
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Ghool
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I think the pwc DL was a bad design decision, and clearly shows (to me at least) that the MP/DM'd aspect of NWN2 was not a part of the original design.
Hence, why the premium module program was aimed a single players only, and which was the main reason why I turned down the premium module project I was offered. No considerations were even given (nor neccessary) for anything beyond a single player experience.
Now, we all know that Atari gave the go-ahead for the premium mod 'experiment' (which failed incidentally, as the premium program didn't generate enough income to justify it as a working business model, and it is very likely we will never see anything similar to that business model again), and due to the larger user base of single players, this is why it was pushed toward the SP RPG crowd.
In steps NWN2, and guess what market it was targeted for? Hence, why we have odd (coming from a MP perspective) design decisions, and the lack of a DM client in the beginning.
Now, that isn't to say that these issues can't be worked-around, or fixed. But the fact remains, we are dealing with single player designed software, and game that's now trying to be converted into a MP platform, which really never was it's original intent.
I don't like the fact that in order to test a module in MP, I will now have to make sure my play-testers get the proper walkmesh files, even if I make the slightest change. Add that to the increased area building time (which is something I can handle, as it's a creative trade-off), the increased item/NPC creation time, bake times, along with a host of others, and we're looking at a time difference in building that barely justifies the trade-off in power, and at a cost of decreased functionality.
That isn't to say I'm writing it off just yet, but the number and frequency of user-made mods is going to be significantly smaller, and slower, and a majority of those will be single player only.
The only way this is going to change is if we start seeing official tools which will make the builder's job a bit easier. After all, I'm not a design team, I'm one guy, and this is something that seems to have also been by-passed by OEI in designing this toolset for the end user.
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| « Last Edit: on: Mar 31, 2007, 12:40AM » |
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) to make it MP friendly? If he was interested enough in it to remake it for NWN2 all these years later, he might be open to a few fixes for full MP functionality. 
"