131 réponses à ce sujet

[dunniteowl]

You know, this entire concept and plan has, at it's end point, the most important part of the equation:

The Players.



Player input before things start happening can be two things: A blessing and a curse. I'd take my chances any day having player input. I'd value thoughtful ideas and suggestions about things that matter to players. No matter how powerful a toolset it may have, what assets it can use or leverage, how easy it is to integrate them and all that other cool jazz. If players don't like to create their character, don't enjoy the combat, skills, choices or methods to play, then it's doom, Doom, DOOM! to the game.



So just because you don't program (I don't) and you don't script (I don't) or you can't model (I'm learning) or you haven't built a module in the toolset (I'm playing around mostly, but building) your input still has potential to shape and determine the final outcome.



I think, if folks making or designing the games and the tools to make them, no matter how empowering they can be, forget the players in the process, then they're really just shooting from the hip at others who feel pretty much the same way as they do.



NWN and NWN2 both aim to provide a level of variety and diversity that pretty much no other games I have seen can hold a candle to. DA:O has potential, to be sure, though my estimation is that it missed the mark more than it hit it, thus wasting a decent portion of talent and time that raised the entry bar for modders (who will mostly stem from players) a bit too high at the outset.



And I personally think highly of the tools, even though I find them myself to be hard to use, there's no doubt about their power, flexibility and potential. By the same token, the level of Savvy to use a lot of it and the specialization that some of the tools really require of a person makes it more of a team/group project oriented tool. Solo modders are pretty much shut out from doing anything remotely cool in any decent amount of time.



And that's a problem when you have to keep people interested as players. So player input is required as well. Feel free to climb the BlueSky Wagon.



best regards,

dunniteowl

[SHOVA]

With all respect to my fellow community members, I think the answer is, No, there will never be another game Like NWN. I believe this for the following reasons.



1. Ease of use. Anyone can play it, anyone can make a mod to play, anyone can shape it as they see fit. The learning curve is rather low, I say this because I have learned to do these things in NWN, and if I can, etc.

2. Bang for the buck. SP, MP, building, scripting, custom content making, all in one package, (I know that it does not include CC making software, but there is free ones out there that does work for NWN) After buying the game, and of course the expansions, I have not had to pay another dime, except to my isp, to play NWN. the futrure of multi-play is pay to play, Sad fact that it has become so, but it has.

3. the community where else is a community that not only helps new and older players figure out stuff, but makes new content for the game week after week and year after year. 1000s of mods, haks, portraits. amazing.

4. Based off of the best game ever made, Dungeons and Dragons. I may get some "Its not the best game ever" or "what is D&D?" but face it, if NWN was based off of monopoly, it would have died the first year. D&D use to be, wait all week, to go to some wierd dudes house, and play in the living room, while trying not to breathe in the cat aroma, all the while waiting for other players to show up. NWN took away all the bad, and left only the good, I can stay home, where there are no cats, Log in and play with others anytime I wish. Don't care for the campain, log out and join another, don't care for the people, create my own and invite friends. thank you Bio!

5. the ability to alter the core game of D&D to entirely new genres. This I add in addition to 2, and 3. even though it could have been covered by both. You can make it a Star Wars game, or a resident Evil zombie survival game, or a Harry Potter game, or a historical revolutionary war game.

6. As time has passed, the NWN experiance has not dimminished, but actualy improved, take what Chico400, and SixSixSix have done to basic look of the tilesets, and boom, new game for free. Mounts, Shading, Scaleing, perhaps soon we will see flying,



The best that could happen is more content for NWN. Maybe Bio will relese the sorce code, and then unlimited things can be done. but a new game that gives all NWN has given us, not a chance!

[Tyndrel]

Eric_of_Atrophy wrote...


This sounds similar to tani's WorldGate program - would it be something along these lines?

Exactly, but built into the game.

Imagine that you are scrolling through the list of available PWs, you spot one that sounds interesting so you click a button and are taken to a page that gives you better information, and if you like what you read you click another button that downloads the required files and tells you when the game is ready.  The main server list would also tell you when you need to update these files in the same "one button" way.

As a builder I have downloaded loads of beautiful content from the vault (particularly tilesets) but it has been purely for my own enjoyment. If I add the need for haks to a world I stop the casual visitor who may become a regular player.  I hope my new project will run on two linked servers, an introductory one that only uses CEP and an advanced one with additional tilesets and a custom hak (that is the theory at the moment). I struggle to understand the reluctance of many players to download free goodies to enhance their enjoyment of the game but it is an indisputable fact and builders have to live with it or find a way round, hence the suggestion.

Modifié par Tyndrel, 17 juillet 2010 - 08:08 .

[ChaosInTwilight]

Tyndrel wrote...

As a builder I have downloaded loads of beautiful content from the vault (particularly tilesets) but it has been purely for my own enjoyment. If I add the need for haks to a world I stop the casual visitor who may become a regular player.  I hope my new project will run on two linked servers, an introductory one that only uses CEP and an advanced one with additional tilesets and a custom hak (that is the theory at the moment). I struggle to understand the reluctance of many players to download free goodies to enhance their enjoyment of the game but it is an indisputable fact and builders have to live with it or find a way round, hence the suggestion.

Yanno, I think one day I may rent a van and hire some goons.. 

Just so I can abduct random NWN players, and interogate them to find out the true answer to  "Why don't you want cool stuff for free?"

[pkpeachykeen]

With all respect to my fellow community members, I think the answer is, No, there will never be another game Like NWN. I believe this for the following reasons.

Ah, but while that's the topic of the thread, that's not exactly what this community-driven engine is about.

See, we're not going for a clone. We're not going for a sequel. As dunniteowl put it in the other thread, it's going to be a chimera, a hybrid of all the best features we can find. That takes care of most every bullet point and concern expressed here. Now, as far as whether it'll ever be as "good" as NWN... Posts like Shova's are the first step to making sure it is. A list of suggestions and concerns like that can be taken and turned into a list of features, those can be evaluated from a coding perspective and rated as far as how possible they are.



What I'm trying to say here is that we're not redoing anything, not trying to top anything. We're trying to make something that does everything we need, within reason.



As flexible and powerful as NWN's engine is, there just simply are things it can't do or are a serious pain to make work.



Being able to integrate those from the beginning has some major advantages, particularly in speed. Who doesn't want a faster engine? Reducing 2DA conflicts (we already have a partial plan to essentially remove the 2DA system, possibly using SQLite to handle far more dynamic databases and allowing for the importing of old 2DA files into the database at run-time), expanding the graphical possibilities, enhancing the ability to mod it... Those are the goals here.



Faster and easier for players, more powerful and flexible for builders, most stable for administrators, and most of all, open. A community engine that can do what the community wants. Sure, it sounds pretty well out there, but all the building blocks are here. They're lying around; OGRE for rendering, a dozen physics systems, GUIs, modules, custom content, database systems, resource loaders.



Everything we need. Just a matter of putting it together. With careful planning and the combined knowledge of even just a few of the people here, does that really sound so impossible? No, I think impossible is a case of mistaken identity here. It was just unlikely.

[ladydesire]

While database systems are nice for Persistent Worlds to use, I don't like the idea of using them for single player content, simply based on the issues that people are having getting the DA toolset to work on their PC's; it uses a database to store the data for the modules and some people have serious issues even getting it to work.

[Mordaedil]

Would be a bit easier if it had a perfectly synonymous database in the engine itself, without outsourcing to bigger producers like MySQL and such.



We are after all, talking about storing integers in a single file, right? That shouldn't be too hard if it can store such information after resetting the game.

[MrZork]

ChaosInTwilight wrote...

Yanno, I think one day I may rent a van and hire some goons.. 

Just so I can abduct random NWN players, and interogate them to find out the true answer to  "Why don't you want cool stuff for free?"

Obviously, some players are a bit lazy (:innocent:). But, there are factors besides that that I think contribute to people not installing the great custom content. Here are some thoughts, in no particular order:

• The game is pretty awesome as it is, just installed from the NWN Diamond retail box and running the 1.69 patch. I think many people who pick up a game that's seven or eight years old aren't all serious gamers. Many may be in the same camp I was, thinking, "Cool! I played AD&D as a kid. I wonder how much of that feel they have captured here." And, the experience of playing the OC and the two expansions is really huge fun. But, even playing several hours every day or two, it can take a couple months to get through the first three campaigns. And, that's not even counting all the people who go through each one a couple times with different characters to see what it's like to play the different classes and so on. So, just playing with no added content (not counting the patch), someone can easily play so much that he gets a little burned out or some other game comes along before he really has much reason to wonder whether there is more content out there.
  
• Many new players don't really know that there is new content, or that there is so much of it. Let's face it, very few games have such an abundance of fan-created content and it may not be instinctive for people to assume it's out there. Sure, most players will have ended up at the Bioware site at some point, but it will mostly be for things like the game patch or help with some problem (they are stuck in the campaign or there is something they think is a bug).
  
  
• This point is HUGE: For a newer player, there isn't an obvious how-to starting point for custom content. In other words, "I want to install some cool thing I saw that says it's a 'hak pack'; or I want some new portraits; or I want to change what the Ring of Invisibility looks like. Where's the step-by-step guide for this?" I'm not saying the information isn't out there, but it's not where one might expect to find it. Most people will come to the Bioware's NWN page and look at the NWN FAQ under "About NWN" and hunt around several pages and find nothing. Then they might check under Support and see the Technical FAQ, which also has no help. If they go to the forums, the first check is probably the NWN General Discussion forums. That looks promising, especially the sticky called "Reference Links & Guides (Read This First!)", but one can easily get lost there without finding much that sounds like it could answer his questions (except maybe the dead link to the PRC site). Even way down in the Custom Content forum, there are several stickies that seem promising, but won't help most newer players, and many of those (which are often full of great info) have no top-level description of what they are, so it's difficult to tell if they are going to be helpful and it's often intimidating to open a tutorial thread and drop straight into a discussion of erf files, toolsets, overrides, etc. For example, the "Custom Content Advice and Tutorials" sticky sounds like it might have advice on the above questions, but a newer player finds himself immediately in the middle of something that sounds technical and he may not make heads or tails of it.
  
  I didn't want to turn that one point into a dissertation, but I recall being a bit frustrated hunting around for that sort of info when I first wanted to add something to the game. The use of custom content would really benefit from a nice, "So, you want to install some cool custom content, do you?" page that has enough descriptive scaffolding that an otherwise intelligent but uninitiated player (someone who has played and maybe install the patch, but that's all) could make use of it. Have a link to a "These are the terms people use when describing custom content and when they talk about installing it" glossary page. (E.g. this is what a tile is, this is what a HAK file is, this is what 'painting' is in the Toolset, etc.") After that, take the first ten or twenty things people might want to do (e.g. "I want to play using a cool-looking battleaxe"), and give each one a link to a page that explains the task step-by-step, and give a couple sentence description of what the player will find on that page before giving the link, so that people don't get frustrating running into dead ends because they don't know how to describe what they want to do.
  
  (BTW, I know that lots of the content itself comes straight off of the vault with a good readme and installation notes. But plenty still sort of assumes you have done this before and custom content in general would really benefit from a standard and easy-to-find jumping off point for installation and related tasks.)
  
• Some people may worry that the custom content they install might mess up the game and they won't know how to fix it. There is a fair amount of "back up this folder up", "add this hak in a certain order", "rebuild the module", etc. stuff that will scare people. A player may be thinking, "All I want are new icons for scrolls / is for my henchmen not to act like such idiots / is to get some items to stack in the inventory / etc.", but they aren't willing to risk a total reinstallation to do it.

I had a couple other thoughts, but this post is already too long.

[pkpeachykeen]

For those concerned about databases and especially setup, the proposed engine is SQLite:
http://www.sqlite.org/

The main logic behind using databases is that 2DAs basically are database tables already, just in a hard to work with format (from a code perspective). SQL, on the other hand, is a lot faster and more flexible. With the possibility to add new 2DAs and add columns to existing ones, it's imperative we have a system that can handle that. That's where SQL, backed by the SQLite engine and exposed to scripts if necessary, comes in. Both the engine itself and scripts can look things up. You can even do plenty of crazy things with SQL, like finding all human NPCs in a module from script.

Now, the difference between SQLite and, say, MySQL is this:

SQLite is a software library that implements a
self-contained,
serverless,
zero-configuration,
transactional
SQL database engine.
SQLite is the
most widely deployed
SQL database engine in the world.
The source code for SQLite is in the
public domain.

I've used it before, and I know this is true. SQLite can handle over 10,000 inserts per second, unoptimized. Retrieving a row out of 300,000 takes less than 1/20th of a second. The database is a single file and SQLite itself is 1 DLL. There just isn't any setup, so there won't be any compatibility problems.

In fact, you're probably already using SQLite. If you use Firefox, Photoshop, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Air, run a Mac, have a Symbian, Android or Blackberry-based cellphone or iPhone (actually, I think most Verizon phones use it too), you already use it.  It's so small, fast and out-of-the-way that you just don't know. If I hadn't said it, we probably could've worked it into this engine and nobody would've noticed.
So, no worries about databases. But if you have a better idea, by all means....

[Snowbug]

Lord Sullivan wrote...

Snowbug wrote...

Too bad I don't really have any skills that would be of help with this project, but I can promise to cheer it on, I guess

Learn!!

Hmmm....

Okay. Where do I start?

[Lord Sullivan]

Snowbug wrote...

Lord Sullivan wrote...

Snowbug wrote...

Too bad I don't really have any skills that would be of help with this project, but I can promise to cheer it on, I guess

Learn!!

Hmmm....

Okay. Where do I start?

Well, the best advice I can give is, follow your talents and interests. If you have a nack at drawing/painting? then
start parcticing seriously starting today. Find tutorials on the internet. If you have some programming skills? start practicing and look for codes exemples of things you'd like to know how to do. If you have interest in learning 3D modeling? grabe a free or free opensource software solution and start practicing and learning from tutorials on the internet, etc...

Where ever it would be beneficial for you to start as only you know yourself and your skills.

Hope that helps

[Kephisto]

Snowbug wrote...

Lord Sullivan wrote...

Snowbug wrote...


Too bad I don't really have any skills that would be of help with this project, but I can promise to cheer it on, I guess

Learn!! webkit-fake-url://A52C7D3F-A98A-42C6-AE5F-10835F28EB65/pastedGraphic.pdf

Hmmm....


Okay. Where do I start?

Hey, Snowbug! You’ve already started! To be of help to just about any project, game related or not, you have all the skills you need right now. You’re not required to learn anything else. That’s because what you bring to a team or project is something extremely valuable, something no one else can duplicate - you bring yourself. 

Each person on a team is valuable and more important than any of their individual skills is their collective ability to work together. A team of world class professionals who all hate each other and never openly discuss their tasks and concerns, just do what each of them feels like doing without regard to others on the team - well, that will end badly. What they release is terrible. That’s if they release it at all.

On the other hand, a small team of amateurs who have fun working together, openly discuss their tasks and concerns, do what’s best for the project and the team and not just for themselves, and are dedicated to a specific cause - well, such a team can move mountains. What that team releases will shine, as if made by professionals.  

So just speak your mind, share your opinions, voice your concerns, which all around help the team reach their objective. Everyone gets a bit winded on a project from time to time, so having someone appreciating their work and cheering them on really helps. 

Above all, have fun! By simply doing that and being yourself, you’re reminding others on the team what all their hard work and sweat is for. The community. How we best serve that community isn’t just by the skills we learn, its also by taking part by speaking up. 

Modifié par Kephisto, 18 juillet 2010 - 07:04 .

[Jez_fr]

I think a NWN3 is very unlikely, but a game/software made to reproduce pen and paper rpg experience in a video game can happen anytime. Bioware is far from being the only RPG company.



I remember very well that in the very first interview about NWN, that's what they tried to achieve with NWN, making a tool to do pnp RPG in video game. That's why there is a DM client (which some people here tend to forget, thats what really make NWN unique), and thats why the Toolset itself was done like a game itself, and not a tool for modders. Any player could create a dungeon easily, which simply isn't possible with NWN2, DA:O etc... (DAO toolset being more of a recruiting tool for Bioware than anything else to me but that's another subject...)



So to go back to OP, a NWN3 probably not. A new RPG creating tool/game that may happen. Its just a matter of a company realizing there is a market for that and to make it. That very well could launch in orbit a smaller company.



When it concern software and video games, vacuum doesn't remain empty for very long so I would remain optimistic =)

[Frith5]

[quote Ben Harrison]
But if what the community wants is another expansion pack-style
campaign... why don't we make one? A "community premium module" wouldn't
even take long to produce if some of us put our heads together.
[end quote]

Hi Ben,

I would love to see, and be part of, anything like this. Creating a complete 'Unofficial Campaign' for NWN, uitilizing the cream of the crop CC and bringing in new CC too, with an arse-kickin' storyline to boot. I have no doubt it could be done, and done incredibly well.

Regards,
JFK

[pkpeachykeen]

@Snowbug: As Lord Sullivan and Kephisto said, help is help. At this point we're still in the planning stage, want to get solid docs down before we start moving. Every suggestion makes this a little bit better. Every community member helping, in any way, makes this that much more of a community project. A community engine isn't a small undertaking, but with a community doing it, it's easily possible. And as Kephisto said, just being willing to help helps. The discussion thread for this is pushing 4 pages now on the Citadel, in just a few days. We've gotten some good ideas and some solid starting points, as well as the opinions of a few world builders, modelers, everyone. Knowing where to go is what we need at the moment, then we need the skills to get there.



If you're interested in learning anything, though, there are plenty of tutorials around for almost anything. Do you have any fields of interest?

[WoodsDweller]

An analogous project is OpenMW : http://openmw.sourceforge.net/jaws/



This is for the Elder Scrolls world.

Someone tried to implement Morrowind (TES3) in Oblivion (TES4) by creating terrain with the new heightmap stuff and SpeedTree, then porting the old buildings over (the MorrOblivion project). Bethesda legal shut them down because they would not allow their art assets to be used in another game, EVEN IN ONE OF THEIR OWN GAMES. Contrast that with the way resources have been shared back and forth between BioWare and Obsidian.



OpenMW, however, seems to be avoiding that problem (and Bethesda is apparently aware of them). They (he?) is writing a new multi-platform engine from scratch that loads the original files unchanged. As far as Bethesda is concerned, it is the same game with a different engine.



This sort of thing can absolutely be done. It can bring an old game back from the dead. Multi-platform, 64 bit, additional resource formats, improved/alternate scripting language, the works.



I'm not going to try to wrap my brain around the EULA to see what loading NWN and NWN2 resources into a different game would be. I can see WotC trying to shut down the use of D&D IP. In fact, I would be surprised if they didn't.

So the "same game, alternate engine" approach might be what is required.

[cokeCan]

OpenMW looks interesting. I am wondering, back in the day we used to play using the caltech rules, which, since the net was not pervasive, you could get and print on your dotmatrix printer from a 51/2 in floppy



The gist is that the caltech rules were more detailed for combat than the d&d rules, and come on, WotC cannot copyright mythology. So if it is a different engine, and uses a different rule system but can import NWN CC is there grounds for any legal action?

[WoodsDweller]

WotC doesn't copyright mythology in general, but they do copyright the Forgotten Realms, and the D&D ruleset. So you can have gods, but not their gods. You can have elves, but not their elves. You can't have a city named "Neverwinter". You can roll for damage, but not the way D&D does it.



I think you either go "same game, alternate engine" and try to get in under the original BioWare contract with WotC (which, for all I know, might have been tied to a specific engine so that wouldn't work), or you go fully independent with clean IP.

[Ticladesign]

That's why I preferred to have Bioware make a Dragon Age game with the NWN concept in mind - less complex toolset (thus less options, but allowing solo builders) Multiplayer and DM client.



The Dragon Age (origins) Engine itself could work with tweaks. But it felt a bit NWN'ish still.



Just the whole Singleplayer only focus, DLC and Cinematic camera make it tricky. That's why I would prefer a spin-off game that uses the DA:O art assets, the ruleset on top of an improved Aurora engine with all the options that NWN has.

[SHOVA]

Feeling NWNish, and being a viable NWN D&D game are two different things. I won't spend the money to get the feeling like something game when I can spend the money to get the game that is. I may be alone in that mindset, but I hope that I am not.

[xXDWARFAREXx]

I would do shameful, terrible things to see Bioware at the helm of NWN3. With great regret, however, I don't see that happening any time in the near future. There may be a 'possibility' some time after 2013 when both the Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age 3 are done and there is little more to be done with that IP... but as was said with the poor handling of licensing these days and what negotiations between WotC and EA would be like, as wonderful as it would be to see NWN3 by Bioware, the chances are incredibly slim, I think.



As for Dragon Age, I don't feel it would really make a good replacement for Neverwinter Nights due to it's non-D&D system. The character customization just isn't expansive enough to keep it varied and interesting on all accounts. It doesn't have the hundreds of feats and spells and the multitude of skill types that really give D&D it's flavor.







Honestly, I would bribe/blackmail a kid with the Make A Wish Foundation to get this to happen. xD Terrible, shameful things...

[Tyndrel]

With Atari's financial problems it may not be too long before the D+D licence is on the market again.

[ChaosInTwilight]

xXDWARFAREXx wrote...

Honestly, I would bribe/blackmail a kid with the Make A Wish Foundation to get this to happen. xD Terrible, shameful things...

I'd sell said child..  or at least his soul..

But by the same token, I believe(I don't have the PC version to check it) DA has the same options of adding to classes, talents, skills and such as NWN does.

With the combat engine being open to modification..   DA:O Has essentially Pistol-whipped, Castrated, And Incinerated NWN in that regard.  What you want is a bunch of "someone else did it" customization options.  Not in DA yet to my knowledge(admittedly poor), but DA has a LOT more potential for good things to come in that regard.

[Lord Sullivan]

DA is far from the platform of choice to have ourselves an evolved NWN. Note, I'm not talking D&D as I frankly don't care what mechanics are used as long as they are elaborate, fun and work. Heck, even NWN2 is not a viable solution, never been.



What we really need is at minimum is an open source platform to work on and plug-in to. Then we can create "Games" and "Worlds" to our satifaction with their own new custom resources all created by the open source community (Project Communities) and we'll finally get what we want. Waiting for any video game company to bring it, is a waste of precious time.



We are never better served then by ourselves. This is not a ditch nor a bash on video game companies, but it is the truth regardless.



Once we create such a platform for ourselves, it does not mean we would stop purchasing new games that are of interest, not at all. But it is crucial that we do it if we want it.



My half penny

[AndarianTD]

Lord Sullivan wrote...

What we really need is at minimum is an open source platform to work on and plug-in to. Then we can create "Games" and "Worlds" to our satifaction with their own new custom resources all created by the open source community (Project Communities) and we'll finally get what we want. Waiting for any video game company to bring it, is a waste of precious time.

We are never better served then by ourselves. This is not a ditch nor a bash on video game companies, but it is the truth regardless.

Once we create such a platform for ourselves, it does not mean we would stop purchasing new games that are of interest, not at all. But it is crucial that we do it if we want it.

I very much agree with this.