23 réponses à ce sujet

[LordNyvek]

We can open all of the game inside of the toolset, correct?  So all that really happens in the toolset is the scripting and such, which the community already has access to.  I believe that the true underlying things the community would find useful is the source code to the toolset.  This would allow the community to fix issues in the toolset, as well as have greater control over the custom content and such.  This is just my theory and 2cp.

[Kaldor Silverwand]

I imagine there are limitations in the engine itself that could not be addressed through toolset scripting. The areas and scripts of the NWN2 OC, MotB, and SoZ are available in the toolset, but the areas and scripts of MoW are not available in the toolset. The toolset is like an editor that edits code. The engine is the interpreter of that code.

It would be great if the toolset were open-sourced though so that bugs could be fixed. It would have to be managed carefully though. Think of all the "bug fixes" done by the community for the OC. Some of them are not what I call bug fixes.

Regards

[LordNyvek]

Right, but what I'm saying is that essentially, the game and expansions were built using the toolset. Thus, things needed to fix bugs in the OC/MoTB/SoZ are already available. Anything other than that would need the toolset code, right?

[kamal_]

Source code would do things like allow someone to rewrite the graphics engine, or address things that are hardcoded (no custom magic using base classes for instance, the level 30 limit) It would make some things that currently require huge hacks to get around (like the level up system) to be changed.

Right now there are many things that can be done, but require nwnx. Amazing things like Skywing's script interpreter. It vastly speeds up the compiled code the scripts generate, but requires nwnx. Source code access would allow many of the features of nwnx to be built into the core game, allowing single player work totake advantage.

[painofdungeoneternal]

NWNx access is the exact same result as source code access. The difference being if it's in the patch, no one has to install it.

If we have source code, then each person releasing it will have to release their stuff, merge it, and users would have to install it.

With NWNx there is the ability to just release a plugin, and thus mod the game that way, same as in toolset. Frankly the one patch which would fix everything would just make the game itself load those nwnx plugins.

[Lugaid of the Red Stripes]

@pain: Is that a reasonable expectation for a 1.24 patch? Make NWNx and plugins a standard part of the single-player installation?

[Zebranky]

I had an email discussion with execs of Obsidian and BioWare late last year on the subject of releasing the NWN2 toolset source. The resolution was that "... it would be a really cool thing to do. Unfortunately, there are a number of complex and irresolvable issues that will prevent us from releasing the source."

I'm skeptical of the prospects of even another patch, but if it's a possibility, I'd request 64-bit binaries for everything involved in the toolset, so that exhausting the 32-bit address space doesn't cause it to crash. That was my motivation for requesting the toolset source in the first place.

Modifié par Zebranky, 17 août 2011 - 03:01 .

[painofdungeoneternal]

I don't see why not, they would not be NWNx plugins ( different addresses), but it would just be an official way to load the client extender, and it would require access to symbols.

[dunniteowl]

Judging from what I've been seeing written here and in the Source or Patch thread would it be possible or more reasonable for us to pitch the idea as allowing the Community to essentially build the patch we'd really like to see that solves the larger and most complex issues and then allow Obsidian to vette it, approve it and then have it applied as an Official Final Patch?

dno

[painofdungeoneternal]

If its the stuff grinning fool added in 1.23, it would be great. There are other things they were midway in progress on which never saw the light of day, fixes needed to the autodownloader.

I see a lot of fear, mainly because it's safer to just not do anything and what happens with a patch will be unknown. Sure a patch will break things ( its always 1 step backwards and 2 steps forward,but that is no reason to stop walking ), but people have source code and can recompile plugins, and redo the 2da's.

But i also know it will bring "lots" of people back ( 1.23 made many show up, releasing a patch is sent out as news and everyone sees it on the gaming sites ).

It's not about who does it, however i'd like any patch to be the "final" one, with an arrangement like we had with 1.23 with developers who care about getting it right. I know the folks at obsidian wanted one more patch to finish up the remaining issues, and i'd like to give them that chance. 

A lot of people will not use anything by the community, therefore the fixes we've done ( and i have about 20 .nss files which are invalid which are causing problems, not to mention skywing fixed issues in the compiler which mean it should get a recompile. ) will help a lot more people if such is in the default game.

Modifié par painofdungeoneternal, 17 août 2011 - 03:50 .

[The Fred]

Agreed.

As much as what the devs may want to do, they're contrained themselves by legalities and the fact that they work for non-philanthropic companies out to make money. I basically can't see them releasing any source code for anything.

The other thing is that anything done by the community which derives from it would now longer be "official". Having to go and get 3rd-party stuff puts a lot of people off, and there'd be worries about stopping it from being a massive mess. I mean, just look at the mods and things we have now. Stuff like Kaedrin's is good stuff, but non of the packs work with each other, and a lot of stuff is of varying quality or doesn't abide by the same conventions as everyone else. It's pretty messy, and with the best will in the world I can only see putting further game development in the hands of the community a route to even greater messiness (I know people like Skywing who have been doing loads of cool stuff already would do way more cool stuff with this, but are we then going to say that only certain people can get the source code, and if so, who?).

I we got a 1.69-for-NWN1-style final patch, that'd be pretty cool in itself. I think what'd be best is if there was some dialogue between the devs and the community, particularly those people like Skywing who know what's going on under the hood. Working with them, they could give us the key bits that they need for us to go further. There's a lot of stuff which would be nice to have but which we can fix ourselves - as LordNevyk says, the OCs are all just modules which can be fixed up a la Kaldor's remakes. Even if a patch didn't fix any bugs, I'd be happy if it gave us the means to fix them. Yeah an unofficial bugfix or further patch isn't ideal, but if it were put together properly it should be fine. I seriously think a lot of the time people should be looking back at Baldur's Gate and what the community have done for that (for newer games, NWN1 and 2 are behind the curve there, seriously) and learn from it... I digress, though.

So while the source code would be great, I think there are too many issues with it. So long as they're willing to make sure any final patch doesn't introduce new bugs or to fix them subsequently, a patch really would be more feasible. Bearing in mind that we'd be lucky even to get that, it's probably a more achievable aim, too.

[dunniteowl]

My English Professor had a saying she stole from some famous dead person:
Aim for the Stars, maybe you'll reach the moon. Aim for the sky and that's as high as you'll ever go.

I'm aiming for the stars -- with contingency plans. Believe me when I tell you that any proposal is going to provide for options and details for each that should make sense to those being petitioned. Right now, I'd prefer to explore what can, should, needs, or would make the most sense in the long run to do. From there, I will load the cannon and set the aim.

dunniteowl

[The Fred]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be pessimistic. If anyone is going to collude with the community like this it's the makers of the NWN series - the NWN1 v1.69 patch was pretty big stuff, and NWN2 has had a decent history of... decency... as far as the devs go. I'm just cautious of getting all hyped up and asking for the world and then getting a flat "no". I think really that communication is the key.

[dunniteowl]

I totally understand The Fred. The whole point of this is to gather intel on the Community sentiment and then parse ideas to come up with a workable plan. The only urgency is that I feel it is best to strike when the iron is hot and I have already sent Atari, Hasbro and Obsidian mesages regarding the 1.24 patch and the lawsuit over the last year and a half. I didn't place those into public knowledge, because I never got any responses back. So no news means nothing to report.

Now that the lawsuit is settled, it may be that they could be more amenable to hearing any requests that might also translate into potential sales. This is not something I plan on just shooting out there immediately. This is part one of a possibly three or four part plan to get something reasonable put together and pitchable.

dunniteowl

[Morbane]

dunniteowl wrote...

Judging from what I've been seeing written here and in the Source or Patch thread would it be possible or more reasonable for us to pitch the idea as allowing the Community to essentially build the patch we'd really like to see that solves the larger and most complex issues and then allow Obsidian to vette it, approve it and then have it applied as an Official Final Patch?

dno

That sounds really good - on paper - but the effort to achieve such a goal is a spite in itself. But we can wish for it...

[The Fred]

Yeah, I think the lawsuit does have rammifications for us, and we should be asking if those include us maybe getting a patch or something.

The reason I think the above course of action is probably the best bet is that they might decide even producing a patch is too much work for them. This would mitigate that, and also give members of the community who (hopefully!) know what's important for a last patch in terms of opening up the most long-term possibilities. So, we get the patch we want, and they have to do less work for us (whilst still being able to generate interest with it, hopefully). Obviously if the case was that they had already nearly finished the next patch before this all kicked off, which I believe is the word on the street, then I expect it would make the best sense for them just to release that either as part of this final patch or even as a prior one, but it'd be a shame for that to go to waste, whatever happens.

[dunniteowl]

I wanted to respond to this post from motu99 that was placed in this thread : What Would Be More Useful to the Community? 1.24 Patch or Source Code Released?

Two reasons:  First, it's a reasoned post and has some really good points, and second, because I wish to specifically add my thoughts regarding the final point made.  Here's the post in question:

Priorities:
1st: Source Code
2nd: Info about engine data structures
3rd: Patch, but ONLY IF compatible with "good" community content.

Source-code should be released to a small group (of say < 10), which controls the development process. This group should be open for new members (or old ones leaving). Whoever enters the group should be put under an NDA. No source-code (or products derived from it) should be allowed outside the group.

Information about the engine's data structures could be distributed to a larger (even open) group: Anything developed with this information would be either a new module (which uses the most recent game version) or a new plugin (a la NWNX, that patches the most recent game version). As standalone units these modules / plugins will be compatible with the most recent game version; they might not be compatible with other modules / plugins, but that situation is not new.

One would have to think how to make releasing the source/info/patch attractive for a company that wants to earn money. The extra money they can gain (by increased sales of the original NWN2) is IMO negligible. IMO the most important issue here is, how to ensure that any work done by the community wont hurt their sales on other (future) RPG-projects.

Primarily, if source code were to be released, it would definitely have to be under NDAs to any with access to it.  That's a business sense given.  I think the number of folks who'd potentially be privy to that data would easily fall into the <10 category.  *(My current estimate is maybe 6 or 7 at most.)*  Of course, the NDA is explicit: You can't develop your own game based on it, you can't use it in competing products, you can't provide it to others, etc.  An NDA doesn't expire until the company who requires it says so.

Increased sales of any sort at this time would be good for Atari, even if they are, in the longer scheme of things and from a bean counting sense, negligible.  Any more sales of this game would simply add to their overall profit on it.  Almost all sales at this point are digital distribution, which is cheap, Cheap, CHEAP compared to another boxed edition.

By that same logic, this increase in sales has no ability to impact Atari on future RPG releases and subsequent sales thereof.  You have to have a product to release before that's an issue.  Okay, let's say Atari does release another RPG of some sort in three years' time.  If the game were at all interesting, the members of this Community would most likely buy it.  Does that sound unrealistic, even if we can find ways to make NWN2 even better than it could ever have been on release (already done, I know, it's a hypothetical based on 'what if' the game now was what it was like on release) how many here would simply say, "Nope, not interested, huh uh, not me, not going to buy another RPG?"

What I do think, though, is that Atari does have a bit of a bad rap for not being too gamer friendly on the whole.  It's a rap born of rushing games out the door, providing less than exemplary support and being incredibly difficult to contact about any game related issues.

To any of you out there, does that sound like a reasonably fair assessment of the reasons folks might not be so quick to purchase another Atari product?

Never underestimate the power of good will.  A bone tossed here and there can do wonders.  If you don't believe me, read Nicolo Machiavelli's "The Prince."  This is a cornerstone to being considered a "good" ruler.  Even a despotic Prince, who rides through town, dispensing coins and tokens to the crowds, will be seen as a wise and just leader.

In other words, a good PR campaign is founded on creating the image of being there, of listening and of being generous to the base.  That alone could improve future sales of any Atari product from this Community.  Of course a little better advertising campaign couldn't hurt, either.  NWN2 certainly didn't get one and look how well it did, considering that.

Something pain mentioned that is also very salient to this concept: Having dedicated Community members be able to review the source code to make improvements to things like NWNx, the autodownloader concept, engine limitations and other issues that the Community has pointed out over the years could be addressed.  There is no time limit: It's done when it's done; by folks who are going to make sure it gets done right without the pressure to release by a sale date.  The folks who'd be involved are already involved.  And their work has produced some fantastic results for the game as it stands.

This could provide a pool of readily tappable resources for another game, or for fixing, testing or reviewing upcoming games.  People who know what they're doing and are familiar with the basic design concepts of how the game was put together -- and thus, how future releases may subsequently be constructed -- not in the exact code states, but their overall design methodology.  In other words, these folks would be like interns for Obsidian or Bioware (code creators initially) and thus prove to be a potential resource from which to draw upon by both those companies and/or by Atari to consult or aid any future releases from other development houses.

Even if development continued on NWN2 by the Community with source code available on a very limited basis, people are still going to be interested in new games, upcoming releases and especially related games.  If Atari had the stones to tap another developer to make a generic RPG with a toolset that capitalized on a Community to improve, mod and make adventures for it, without restricting them to using "just this stuff we made" I am sure members of this Community would flock to it.

How many here own ONLY NWN2?  Show of hands?  I'm a moderator, which I suppose counts me as an "Extreme Fan" of the game and I have a ton of other games.  And I plan on getting more.  As much as I love NWN2, having a constantly evolving improvement of it won't stop me buying competing products and I feel confident that others here feel likewise.

I take the time to address this last point only because I believe it's a good point made and it deserves a complete and full response.

dunniteowl

[foil-]

I thought motu99's post was fairly concise and well laid out as well.

One thing we may be able to take advantage of is that Atari doesn't seem to have rights for future D&D games.  They can only take advantage of profits from existing games.  They may be up to taking advantage of an improvement or patch to NWN2 to bleed some more out of the lisence.  They wouldn't be able to change the ruleset (likely) but there is still a huge audience still clamoring for 3.5ed D&D which Wizard is not going to be supporting in new games.

If Atari was smart, they might be willing to tap this large 3.5e market and release an enhanced NWN2.  Its not a large step to incorporate some features to bring this engine up to date.  Lighting and textures are already rivaling the best games.

I would be curious to hear from the developers/programmers in this community what the possibilities of adding the following would be:

-Extra character bones for better animations (might have already been done)
-Support for DX11 to add some minor graphics features that would add some depth to the graphics (edge shadows, depth of field specifically).  I think tesselation is a bit too ambitious for this engine on current graphics hardware.
-Improved facial animations
-This one is a long shot: added cinematographic tools for making cut scenes similar to Dragon Age.
-fix performance issues with graphics engine (AMD apparently had some insight on performance issues with NWN2)


Edit: On a side note, I've noticed that Misery Stone indoor performance drops drastically (between 10 - 25fps) when ceilings are turned on.  With or without carrying a torch.  Has this already been noted or documented somewhere? GPU=nVidia 560Ti.

Modifié par foil-, 21 août 2011 - 06:55 .

[The Fred]

The 1.69 for NWN1 didn't stop me buying NWN2. I'd already bought NWN2 (I just couldn't run it).

Also I don't think there is much chance of us sodding off with the source code and selling it as NWN3. Look at something like GemRB, which is an Infinity Engine emulator. That's completely community-produced, and awesome, but you need to own the games if you want to run them through it. I'd say it actually will be generating more sales, because pretty soon people will be able to play BG on their iPads (hopefully, if Apple don't screw them over too much).

Info on the data structures and stuff would be great too. Bioware had a "for developers" page with great info on the structure of TLKs, GFFs, etc. NWN2 has some new stuff (like CAM files) which aren't detailed there, though. We'd be able to do more, and more easily, if they just released that little bit of info.

I'm with Foil on the potential here. Now, maybe the small NWN2 community is not that attractive to game developers, but you'd think that with the push towards MMOs leaving a lot of us dissatisfied and the new 4th Ed D&D leaving a lot of WotC customers feeling abandoned, a 3.5th Ed SP/MP/PW game with all these capabilities could be sold to a significant minority, say. I mean, I'm hardly in the know about these things, but surely they have clever sales people who are and who could make it work?

[nicethugbert]

dunniteowl wrote...

My English Professor had a saying she stole from some famous dead person:
Aim for the Stars, maybe you'll reach the moon. Aim for the sky and that's as high as you'll ever go.

I'm aiming for the stars -- with contingency plans. Believe me when I tell you that any proposal is going to provide for options and details for each that should make sense to those being petitioned. Right now, I'd prefer to explore what can, should, needs, or would make the most sense in the long run to do. From there, I will load the cannon and set the aim.

dunniteowl

THIS!

[MokahTGS]

Why would you aim for a giant ball of high pressure gas undergoing fusion? I'd aim for slightly left of that just to keep my undies from setting ablaze...

[The Fred]

Also, if we were to be nitpicky, the sky isn't really a single discrete entity. If you were going upwards, it'd be very hard to define when you had entered and left the sky. Obviously the end of the sky is arguably not as far away as the stars, but at night time, the stars are in the sky, as is the moon. Therefore we must conclude that the location of the sky varies based on the time of day (and thus the sky is bigger on one side of the Earth than the other), and that it was daytime when your teacher told you this.

I should also point out that, depending on which stars you aimed for, and the time of month, you might be going in the completely opposite direction to reach the moon, and would only be able to do it if the universe is indeed curved and you went significantly further than said stars.

Sorry... ;-)

[dunniteowl]

Oh, God, and I thought I could be geeky. Thanks, all, I know I'm with my "own kind" for certain sure now. Rest assured all those details will be taken into account when I launch.

dno

[foil-]

MokahTGS wrote...

Why would you aim for a giant ball of high pressure gas undergoing fusion? I'd aim for slightly left of that just to keep my undies from setting ablaze...

The added benefit being the sling shot effect would probably send you back in time before Wizards awarded Atari the D&D license.  Imagine the good you could do for human kind.  Wales!  pah!  Think bigger!