230 réponses à ce sujet

[Olblach]

OK.. Which one? FR LYNCIA, DungeonEternalX, ADL - The Immortals? One of the Roleplay servers with ADL in name? Any of them?

[painofdungeoneternal]

Nothing i do is private, its all shared - i don't even have a website of my own but instead use the various community sites like Nwn2wiki, Here and the Citadel.

I gave links to two of the vault pages, also haks were put on the RWS site. Ideally ADL compatible haks are put on the vault pages by content authors ( this means not putting 2da files in the haks which are where most of the conflicts are ).

Again there is nothing "formal" about this, it's called talk with the other PW admins which also means when they develop new features you end up being able to share the benefits. ( I already am feeling i am in house scripter for Sea of Dragons, and got 5-6 major tasks requested by ALFA on my todo list ). If i were you i'd be coordinating with the social servers like haven ( Barbafuz and Kemo i've done a lot of coordination with ), and the social suites author and working on standardization instead of forking things yet again, ideally the end result would work with content aimed at the roleplay and action types.

If you want something more formal the place to do it is on the Citadel or here. Last thing we need is another forum to register at.

Despite people describing lzma files on the vault this just does not work, since end users are downloading them manually and not understanding why they don't work, and its far better to host files using drop box than using the vault which is much slower. The PW also needs extracted hak files anyway and lzma is a lot harder for folks to extract compared to 7zip. I am no longer focusing on that and just doing the actual hak files - the lzma files the game generates will always be the same.

The easiest way to get a complete working set of files i have set up is to just login to my PW ( Dungeon Eternal X in action ) and you will get all the files needed - this is really the mother ship for a lot of this. You also will be able to look at my 2da/UI files ( which are set up for my own PW to a large degree except for some specific files i intend to be used universally like appearance.2da ). Note that this is always "bleeding" edge, things that just came out will be on my pw but not on the vault yet like the intellect devourer which i am testing. ( 2 of my creature haks i am still adding things to )

As for Heeds PC tools, one of the projects i am aiming at tackling is updating that to work better with the DMFI and integrate with my new UI. Basically it will be a complete rewrite with all current features supported, but there is a lot of work still needing to be done before i tackle that ( and talking with those using it so i can improve how it works for them ).

Modifié par painofdungeoneternal, 25 octobre 2010 - 06:23 .

[Olblach]

Ah ok, my PW is still in alpha and I don't know which haks I will keep at the end. Since it is greek pantheon basedI probably end removing 80% of the contents anyway. The thing is I don't have the materials to replace it...however that's another story.

About lzma if you give a external link to a lzma on the vault (not sure about hosted ones) then servers can use that link and have players directly download from there. I thought you were doing something like this. You don't even need an active NWN2 server just one for the contents (i'm using separated ones myself).

What you could do is open a page on the vault "ADL suite" or whatever you like and give direct links to all the lzmas and then servers would use them.

That would work.. if and only if.. the haks never change

About how to do it in the toolset you have "Manage Servers" to add new servers and "Assign Servers" in "Prepare Client Files". The neat thing about this is if you are short on bandwith you can host half the files and have another server host the other half.

Never done it myself but I believe it would work.

I can even host a few for you by the way I'm using only 1% of my bandwith atm.

Modifié par Olblach, 25 octobre 2010 - 06:36 .

[painofdungeoneternal]

Olblach wrote...

About lzma if you give a external link to a lzma on the vault (not sure about hosted ones) then servers can use that link and have players directly download from there. I thought you were doing something like this. You don't even need an active NWN2 server just one for the contents (i'm using separated ones myself).

I thought that too, it does not work out well in practice-actually its a complete failure. If you host on the vault the players will complain. Use drop box, it's free. Often theory and ideals have to take a back seat to what works, as far as i know no PW is using the LZMA files provided on the vault on the RWS pages, however i've seen multiple people ( even pw admins ) confused by the same. A lot of my ideas have been adjusted by trial and error and just figuring out what works.

As for everything else, join the community in IRC, get an IRC client and have it open while you are working - it makes it a lot easier to ask questions and coordinate. I've helped quite a few PW's get organized, and i am sure i could provide quite a bit of advice which in the long run will save you a lot of aggravation as i know most of the hidden issues you will run into when you start up a PW. ( im on in the evenings west coast usa time ).

Modifié par painofdungeoneternal, 25 octobre 2010 - 06:40 .

[Olblach]

Yes you can give a direct link to your server file instead of hosting it on vault. I admit it would be confusing for users though. Perhaps discuss this with Maximus or whoever is maintaining the vault atm to open an ADL section. Such stuff would require at least a hak host guide, a server admin guide, and if not a website at least a vault entry.
I'll check with you on IRC when my PW gets out of alpha. I have not even decided which haks I will get as of today.

Modifié par Olblach, 25 octobre 2010 - 06:50 .

[Banshe]

If you use Dropbox, read this thread first:



http://social.biowar...2/index/4812123



And do use dropbox. It is free hosting and better speed for your downloads.



Regarding the rest of the thread. The "ADL" does not replace CEP. There is one key ingredient in the CEP which ADL lacks: conformity. There is no standard that players and PWs can recognize and say "ahhh, I know that" at.



Let me put it to you how an NWN2 CEP would look like. I'm going to call it the "Joint Content Initiative" (JCI). The JCI follows the same principle as torrenting. In some cases, it owns and hosts nothing. Now I know some of you are going to jump all over this idea and say that this already happens. It does but it also does not. What this does which the existing system does not is affect perceptions. The perceptions of players and by extension, PW Admins and Custom Content Makers.



The type of content does determine what can happen to it. Let's start with tilesets as they are easiest to describe:



Have a vault page on the NWVault much as the CEP does. Have a tileset section where all the tilesets that are ADL compliant are listed along with links to the Custom content maker's vault page. PW Admins and Module makers follow the links, go to the CC author's page, vote, comment and download. I would suggest that the JCI be used as a prefix for the lmza download on the author's page. This is to let the player know that it is a JCI file and that it does come from the author directly.



So what do you have? A brand name that players and the community can recognize. They can differentiate between PW/Module specific files and JCI files. And I will scream like a Banshee if anyone says anything along the lines of "they can figure that out anyways". Why? Because the player can come from anywhere and be well informed or poorly informed about NWN2. You give them one name they can recognize, not many...





And here is the beautiful part: there is no JCI team. Just a list of contributors (the Custom content makers). No one needs to worry that someone is trying to steal their content.



In case I was unclear, you group all of the CC under an umbrella name that means something to people.

[painofdungeoneternal]

Olblach wrote...

Yes you can give a direct link to your server file instead of hosting it on vault. I admit it would be confusing for users though. Perhaps discuss this with Maximus or whoever is maintaining the vault atm to open an ADL section. Such stuff would require at least a hak host guide, a server admin guide, and if not a website at least a vault entry.
I'll check with you on IRC when my PW gets out of alpha. I have not even decided which haks I will get as of today.

Like i said i've done that, no one is using it, and it makes the downloads too slow which causes complaints - i won't even use the lzma's hosted on the vault myself. It just does 

Use drop box instead. You get 2 free gigs and you can increase that with every referal you get from your players who sign up.

( you have to remember that a lot of my comments are based on things you just have not dealt with yet, and they sidestep major issues you will run into much further down the road, a lot of this is far less than an ideal, but it makes things easiest on the PW Admin like you and the players - i would suggest just using my base haks, adding in the social community suite ones and then on launch removing things you just never got to using, since what i describe is modular it lets you easily remove parts you don't end up using. I know electrocuto is prepping a "base" pw set of content which you might want to look at using as well - it is based on my content setup. )

[painofdungeoneternal]

Banshe wrote...


Let me put it to you how an NWN2 CEP would look like. I'm going to call it the "Joint Content Initiative" (JCI). The JCI follows the same principle as torrenting. In some cases, it owns and hosts nothing. Now I know some of you are going to jump all over this idea and say that this already happens. It does but it also does not. What this does which the existing system does not is affect perceptions. The perceptions of players and by extension, PW Admins and Custom Content Makers.

 

Yes i think its all about branding, however i am using ADL as the prefix, and this is already moving forward just calling it "autodownloader compatible" or ADL. Despite everything this is being implemented via the PW admins despite a lack of branding, having a website and all the rest and i don't really want another acronym to compete with the CEP or what has already been accomplished. All of this is doable on the vault without adding something new and the key time to implement this is when new pw's and modules are asking for help with fixing their custom content.

Everything you are saying is happening to a degree or another, the only thing lacking is i would like to be able to put ADL compatible haks on the respective pages of existing content in 7zip format for authors who are no longer with us like the city hak. And of course many Pws were set up prior to the autodownloader and don't want to rock the boat and redo their content, calling it JCI is not really going to do anything to make module/Pw makers adopt this except confuse them. And unlike NWN the way things are set up the players don't have to have any idea we are doing this to make it work, the only thing they will notice is their hard drives are not choked full of content they have to delete.

Regardless of everything we do, the climate in NWN2 is a lot more folks doing more elaborate worlds with a lot more focus on unique custom content instead of everything using the same base, our worlds and ideas are just plain different from each other. To a large degree this is far more important that each world is individualized instead of standardized, but at the same time redundant downloads need to be eliminated.

[kamalpoe]

Banshe wrote...
Regarding the rest of the thread. The "ADL" does not replace CEP. There is one key ingredient in the CEP which ADL lacks: conformity. There is no standard that players and PWs can recognize and say "ahhh, I know that" at.

In case I was unclear, you group all of the CC under an umbrella name that means something to people.

"There is one key ingredient in the CEP which ADL lacks: conformity. "
The ADL_ stuff is already the product of PW agreement on what needs to be in a hak. It has the conformity of the PW's agreement. As more PW's realize the benefits it offers, it will have more "conformity".

"In case I was unclear, you group all of the CC under an umbrella name that means something to people. "
It already does, ADL has a name scheme, ADL_filename. Here's the list of ADL content I got by connecting to DeX and SoD.
3.bp.blogspot.com/_Arkur0fkYgs/TMXdoE5MrSI/AAAAAAAAA6c/d0tEd-16VpE/s1600/adl.JPG
As you can see, there is a tremendous amount of content already in ADL_ format.

You can sign in to Pain's Dungeon Eternal server and it will download the ADL_ stuff he uses (pretty much all of it iirc).
Then sign in to Sea of Dragons (another ADL compliant server). Very
little will download from SoD because the ADL_ stuff is uniform between
servers, and you already got it from Dungeon Eternal.

The system is clean to the point I will be using it for future single player work.

[Olblach]

Yes you can keep ADL for the file names wether or not you decide to keep the ADL brand to discuss about it.

About confusion, we are in confusion since the beginning of this thread it would be time to bring some clarification to have your idea spread amongst more than a happy few.

I just noticed that external links has been removed from the vault so it won't work the way I imagined it.

Call it CEP, ADL or JCI I don't really mind what I do mind about is that things are clear for hak creators, hak hosts and server admins.

RULE ONE
hak modified => name change
RULE TWO
One hak => one or more links (dropbox, nwvault, or your private server doesn't matter).

Then I sign

And obviously Banshe is right about listing content, nwvault can help a great deal here.

Why not upload all those files to the vault and reach the purpose they were designed for?

Modifié par Olblach, 25 octobre 2010 - 07:58 .

[Banshe]

Yep, I understand that the "ADL" prefix is being used. But, as has been pointed out already in this thread, it's use is two fold. And it is not entirely clear that it has two meanings to everyone.



Definition 1: If you see this prefix on a PWs name, it means that the PW uses the autodownloader

Definition 2: a PW may or may not use ADL, but there are haks that it can use in its PW with ADL as the prefix that means it works nicely with other content. Or maybe the LMZA thing means it can only work with the autodownloader unless it is decompressed. Nevertheless, it is still a second definition for the same term.



On top of that, just because a PW uses the autodownloader, it does not mean they are using the ADL_ prefixed files.



So these two things are separate.



On top of that, there is also the grouping of these things. There needs to be a store front where you can see all the products that match a description (in this case compliant with CC author and PW Admins desires). You need that page on the vault.



I haven't talked about the other types of CC. But no matter what happens with this, something does need to be done. Pain's monster pack does one set of it. But there does need to be agreed upon clothing, item, placeables etc. packs. Because it is a mess. And every PW doesn't need to reinvent the wheel to fix this themselves.



As for people getting used to the name JCI (I will leave it to the CC authors to come up with their own name), the name CEP was pretty quickly grasped and understood thanks to a big push from Bioware. For those who don't frequent these boards, at least they would see it on the vault page of the CC author.

[Olblach]

By the way if you tell me how to get the hash sum of a lzma we could find a way to compress the hak to LZMA:26 (7Zip Ultra) instead of LZMA:23  
That would make your lzma smaller, for example: 436 022k would compress to 56k instead of 74k

Just need to check if the NWN client would decompress such file but I think it would.

Modifié par Olblach, 25 octobre 2010 - 08:16 .

[painofdungeoneternal]

They are on the vault. Yes the files should not change - i actually designate some haks as where i do new content until i hit about 25 megs and then start a new one, otherwise i'd have 600 haks already. I don't change the name since it should replace the old version - but i do talk to the folks using my content assuming they let me know who they are.



They also are being used by PW admins who are willing to standardize- i am very active and know just about all of them. The main reason its not in use more is that most PW's were setup prior to the downloader and the admins will not change how they do things after fighting content issues for a long time- it's just a matter of time though as more and more folks are getting on board just because it's easier to use.



While this is being done for players - the only reason a PW admin changes things after they get things working is when they have a problem, once you do all the work of getting your PW up and running you will understand this. The goal is to do the work of getting correct content, well curated and not 2 gigs of banner variations and broken content. Going forward people are tending to play more on PW's using this than those who are not.



Placeables is partially done, there is a project working on tilesets, monsters is working very well and is inclusive, and i got a lot of visual effect content as well. Rather do things slowly and right than have a big mess which has to be fixed. To a large degree unless its a very small project it will correlate to content on the vault.



Some i uploaded and were never approved or it went into the vault black hole. ( vault is hard to work with and i tend to just use drop box instead )

[painofdungeoneternal]

Olblach wrote...

By the way if you tell me how to get the hash sum of a lzma we could find a way to compress the hak to LZMA:26 (7Zip Ultra) instead of LZMA:23  
That would make your lzma smaller, for example: 436 022k would compress to 56k instead of 74k

Just need to check if the NWN client would decompress such file but I think it would.

Won't work, the lzma has to be made by the toolset or it won't work right with the client. Regardless I WILL NOT host lzma on the vault, if you need such put them on the page for your PW or on drop box. The entire idea of putting up LZMA files does not work.

Like i keep saying the hosting of LZMA files does not help anyone, it just confuses the admins, and the toolset will force you to remake the lzma files when you stage your PW no matter what you do.

[Olblach]

How do you know? Did you try changing the hash values in the xml? Again, I was referring to the old possibility to display external link on the vault. The "External Website Beyond Our Control" feature which has been removed, I didn't know that.

[painofdungeoneternal]

Banshe wrote...

Yep, I understand that the "ADL" prefix is being used. But, as has been pointed out already in this thread, it's use is two fold. And it is not entirely clear that it has two meanings to everyone.

Definition 1: If you see this prefix on a PWs name, it means that the PW uses the autodownloader
Definition 2: a PW may or may not use ADL, but there are haks that it can use in its PW with ADL as the prefix that means it works nicely with other content. Or maybe the LMZA thing means it can only work with the autodownloader unless it is decompressed. Nevertheless, it is still a second definition for the same term.

On top of that, just because a PW uses the autodownloader, it does not mean they are using the ADL_ prefixed files.

So these two things are separate.

On top of that, there is also the grouping of these things. There needs to be a store front where you can see all the products that match a description (in this case compliant with CC author and PW Admins desires). You need that page on the vault.

I haven't talked about the other types of CC. But no matter what happens with this, something does need to be done. Pain's monster pack does one set of it. But there does need to be agreed upon clothing, item, placeables etc. packs. Because it is a mess. And every PW doesn't need to reinvent the wheel to fix this themselves.

As for people getting used to the name JCI (I will leave it to the CC authors to come up with their own name), the name CEP was pretty quickly grasped and understood thanks to a big push from Bioware. For those who don't frequent these boards, at least they would see it on the vault page of the CC author.

If you want people to adopt this, focus on asking the decision makers ( pw admins ) what they would need to agree to use it, talk to the PW admins involved, and SP authors. Then once you see what they need, we can implement that. Coming up with what you think is needed is not going to get it adopted - marketing is not the core issue here. Some player demand at some point is required, but a boycott of PW's who are not on board will not help the game as a whole, we need to slowly implement this soas to allow PWs to be able to implement this in their spare time and on their terms.

When Admins start seeing PW's like Sea of dragons who adopt this, and noticing they have lots of players at all times they will then get in line and rework their content ( no players is worst problem on a PW ). Only after everyone is doing this will we as a community see an increase in overall player counts as players hop from PW to PW more when they get bored instead of just leaving the game entirely. I've already got players on my action server who also play on that roleplay server.

Modifié par painofdungeoneternal, 25 octobre 2010 - 08:48 .

[painofdungeoneternal]

Olblach wrote...

How do you know? Did you try changing the hash values in the xml? Again, I was referring to the old possibility to display external link on the vault. The "External Website Beyond Our Control" feature which has been removed, I didn't know that.

I tried it.... Even if you do it manually, the toolset will mess it up when it stages.

Modifié par painofdungeoneternal, 25 octobre 2010 - 08:52 .

[Olblach]

Hmm ok. My thought was that if you modify modulesdownloaderresources.xml after the staging you could send better compressed files (if you get the hash right of course). Since it's using lzma.library maybe interface it directly instead of 7z.

Modifié par Olblach, 25 octobre 2010 - 09:01 .

[painofdungeoneternal]

Olblach wrote...

Hmm ok. My thought was that if you modify modulesdownloaderresources.xml after the staging you could send better compressed files (if you get the hash right of course). Since it's using lzma.library maybe interface it directly instead of 7z.

That sounds like pure chaos for marginal benefit if it is even possible, it's hard enough getting a PW launched if you use what is already set up. You need to focus on getting your PW working instead of reinventing the wheel. If you start focusing on this sort of thing you will never get a PW launched, even if you got that working it would just make each update a lot of work as you correct the xml and lzma files. When you get near launch i can show you how to run the updates in a way that works, is fast and basically automated, and gives players the fastest possible downloads.

Focus on getting your "town" and starting area up, some forums started, and a quest or two - the bare things you need to show your eventual intent - only after you start hearing player comments will you understand what you are in for as a PW admin so get your server up and running even if it only has a couple of areas. Once you get the core of the world up you can start adding area after area as you build your world, and you will learn what players actually want so you don't waste your time building things your players don't care about.

The lzma used on the downloader is not standard, the only way to make a file that will work is to use the staging in toolset ( or use .net in a plugin or the like to use that code ). You probably can trick it somehow of course via toolset plugin and client extension, but everyone involved would have to use the exact same trick or the files are not autodownloader compatible, multiple pw's cannot share the same files, and everyone has to muck around with that xml file which is a very bad idea. Remember we want things standardized.

Modifié par painofdungeoneternal, 25 octobre 2010 - 09:59 .

[Olblach]

No that would not be more work since you would not do any staging with toolset but with an external tool. But it would be more work for the tool developer that's the point.

25% smaller files means what would have been downloaded in 1 hour would take 45 minutes, not worth it?

Oh and thanks for your advices about how to make a PW I feel educated now.

Modifié par Olblach, 25 octobre 2010 - 10:05 .

[painofdungeoneternal]

Olblach wrote...

No that would not be more work since you would not do any staging with toolset but with an external tool. But it would be more work for the tool developer that's the point.

25% smaller files means what would have been downloaded in 1 hour would take 45 minutes, not worth it?

Oh and thanks for your advices about how to make a PW I feel educated now.

Not if it means i have to download all the files again, even with a tool it would require EVERY pw use it or all the ADL ideas are worthless.  The goal here is to prevent needing a download to begin with. And of course it takes up effort you should be using to get your PW up and running.

The resulting files would be the same size regardless.

[Olblach]

Bah, it doesn't have to be me who makes it, besides I have other projects I'm working on. It does not matter if you set a file for a hak then you can choose which compression method you take (if it works). Just tell the the PW owners to make sure they skip the haks when staging. The older ones can remain as is. They also could never stage the haks the tool would patch the xml with the right info since it would be already known. However we speak about something we don't even know if it is possible.

Oh and my PW is alpha and very unfinished but you can connect on it . I've got the background design set since 2003 in fact...I know exactly what I want.

it could seem empty because I'm working on systems first I have to make NESS, CNR, HCR (own version), Tony_K AI, Jassperre AI, I'm also thinking about implementing some other systems and might add one of my own (a relic system).
Now the area design I know I'm really bad at that but it improved a little since I first started in 2007 (I took a 3 years break). I gave up in 2007 because I was unable to make a bridge that you could cross. But now I'm back on it and figured out that part (well I cheated heavily but you can cross it now ). Though that was trying to convert Leto code from Delphi to C# that wore me out, I got Charpenter out of that though (a really small subset of what it would have been otherwise).

I have a very poor grammar too but I check google to find the best sentences for the conversations...

And yes, it will be quest based a bit like NWN1's CoA not spawn based. However this thread is not to talk about me and my PW 

Modifié par Olblach, 25 octobre 2010 - 10:37 .

[dunniteowl]

OKay, it's great you're going, (with your PW design) but it's pretty clear that's not on topic and for the most part, I'd like to keep this one on point for the reason that it is actually quite important.

Now, painofdungeoneternal has done a lot of work and coordinating with others to get this thing running, so, along with Grinning Fool (He who created the autodownloader) should be considered a primary expert on the matter.

So, now that we've hashed out a bit, let me ask a few questions for pain to answer and perhaps, the rest of those who read these pages will come away with some better idea of where to go from here.

One: You mention that posting haks in LZMA format provides no benefit with the autodownloader, as well as mention the problems with hosting the files on the Vault. Please, tell us, in your point of view, what is the best method for posting the files themselves (ie: .rar, .zip, 7zp, etc) and how best to host those files.

Two: You mention the coordination required to have the haks named appropriately, and to avoid redundant downloads. Who all should really be involved in this sort of discussion to standardize the methods of file production and then distribution? In this I mean, a considered approach to naming conventions, modifications to existing files and compiling the necessary .2da's and such to make everything 'play nice?'

Three: Is there something else that we, as a Community, in your view, seem to be overlooking in this discussion?
Also, for anyone, if you can get The Grinning Fool to sort of hop in here and make some comments on the autodownloader itself (that isn't already contained in the autodownloader sticky topic in the Toolset Forums -- I believe it is...) then by all means, I think that'd be worthy as an objective as well.

Meanwhile, some salient points:

1) I think we can all agree that the easier it is on the player, no matter whether they are PW or SP oriented, the better for the Community, yes?

2) The player actually requires little to no knowledge of how the autodownloader works or how the files are gotten, where they are hosted, etc. It's why it's called the autodownloader. You connect to get the module (or to the PW) and BAM! the autodownloader does the rest.

3)I think we can all agree also that repetition in some things (like downloading the same content repeatedly) is a Bad Thing™ and should be avoided whenever possible, yes?

4)I think we can also agree that, in principle, large, bandwidth eating downloads of ANY kind should be avoided whenever possible to prevent those who are bandwidth challenged from having to decide not to use them in order to keep using their internet service for the rest of whatever remains in their monthly terms.


So in that light, I'd like to allow this discussion to continue, with a focus on to dealing with the situation as it stands and how best to tackle any issues that prevent the use of one of the best tools we have in the Community to ease the strain on players and builders when it comes to content distribution.


best regards,
dunniteowl

Modifié par dunniteowl, 25 octobre 2010 - 11:10 .

[kamalpoe]

dunniteowl wrote...
I think we can all agree also that repetition in some things (like downloading the same content repeatedly) is a Bat Thing™
dunniteowl

Dunna dunna dunna dunna BAT THING, BAT THING!

[dunniteowl]

I knew I couldn't edit that fast enough... I hate being sick.